Vampyres (1974)

They shared the pleasures of the flesh, and the horrors of the grave!

Two women are lying together in bed. Both wake up, and they kiss... when suddenly, the door to their bedroom opens: A man with a gun! He fires several shots at the scared lovers... and they fall onto the bed - dying - dead.




So starts Vampyres, a 1974 movie by José Ramón Larraz.

Then the titles start rolling.

Cut to present day: A couple is driving its car with a trailer through the woods, when they come across a female stopper. They ignore her, driving on - but a man is willing to take the (quite attractive, in that 70s way) woman in and drive her to her goal.




Back to the couple. They parked close to an abandoned castle, which somehow seems to worry the woman, Harriet (played by Sally Faulkner). She keeps thinking back to the woman they saw - and that other, blonde woman, who was hiding behind the trees... but only Harriet saw her. Maybe it was a hallucination? But we know better.




And the abandoned castle isn't as abandoned as they were led to believe - a single scream, coming from the lungs of a man, wakes Harriet from her sleep.
But no one's out there... or so she is assured by her husband, John (Brian Deacon).




The next morning, she sees two women - one of them the brown-haired woman who was hitchhiking, the other one the blonde woman who was hiding behind the trees. They were running off, hand in hand, to the nearby cemetery.




The day is spent with leisurely activities - painting, fishing... and images of the cemetery haunt us with their spectral beauty.




And again, we witness the dark-haired hitchhiker - Fran - getting a ride, with her mysterious blonde companion hiding behind the thin trees...

This time, the man lucky enough to pick up the sensuous, full-lipped Fran comes with her, accompanying her inside the "abandoned" castle - and of course, Harriet sees them. She has noticed... and in her mind, she already has constructed something dark and foreboding around the castle and its apparent inhabitants.




What we are being treated to here is a masterpiece of vampire cinema. I should know - although, as I already pointed out in my review of Låt den rätte komma in, I am not too big a fan of vampire movies, but the Gods be my witness that I own a lot of them. And I mean a lot a lot. However, I don't really enjoy most of them - if I have to watch a vampire flick, I prefer it to be one of the more "artsy" types... or, as in this case, a beautifully done, interesting movie. This is the type of lesbian vampire movie that I can thoroughly enjoy.




Back to the story... Fran and the as of yet anonymous man she invited into their home have some fun - of the carnal sort. What follows is a genuinely creepy scene - the as of yet anonymous gallant she invited finds her asleep next to him, her eyes wide open... but unseeing. He also feels weak, and getting out of bed to check the door makes him more than just uneasy. Exhausted, he falls back into the bed - he didn't even make it to the door. What happened during the night...? And why does he have a deep gash on his left arm?




And where is the beautiful woman he spent the night with - now that it's day and the sun is up in the sky?

Not just that... but he also finds one of the wine glasses broken, covered with some thick ...red at its edges. And there's blood on the sheets where he was lying on.




And still, Fran is nowhere to be found...

He searches through the castle - but besides for a dangerous looking dagger, he finds nothing.




And so, he decides to leave the empty, abandoned castle. On his way, he stops by the couple and their van, because he's searching for help with his wound. The cut is deep, and he explains it, rationalising its existence to himself and the couple by stating that he fell onto a glass, hence the injury. He leaves with mysterious words as he's asked if someone lives in "that house" (referring to the castle) - "That's what I asked myself earlier this day - and I haven't found an answer!"




But for some reason... for some reason we don't know, if we're normal humans, he drives back to the castle, sleeping through the day - until he finally awakens as another cars drives by, and Fran exits it. She apologises for her disappearance earlier that day, and Ted is okay with that. But Fran has brought friends - the beautiful blonde Miriam, and a ...friend of hers, a young man.




As Miriam and her young visitor, Rupert, go to fetch some more red wine for the company's amusement, Ted starts up a conversation with Fran, during which he finds out that the two women are lovers.




This movie has some awesome dialogues - and need I talk about the pictures? It deals openly with sex and sexuality, without degrading itself to the level of softcore porn. This is not a Jess Franco movie about pretty lesbian vampires - this is a serious, nearly flawlessly executed, sensuous movie about two women who need to drink blood.




I love that they both - Fran and Miriam - don't have fangs, and that they and their interaction with one another and the others give us a portrayal of vampires that isn't Hollywood's idea of what a vampire should entail, but instead one that paints the two blood drinkers in a more human light. They are women first and foremost, and lovers, too. They just happen to have to drink blood.

Miriam (the blonde one) warns Fran that she's playing a dangerous game with the man she more or less took in and is playing with - but Fran won't listen. We are left to wonder why...




As another day comes, both women are off to the cemetery together - again.

Meanwhile, Ted has noticed that his watch stopped functioning - again. It never stops... only when he's around Fran resp. her friend Miriam. He also discovers that the mirrors in the castle are covered with black tape. What could this mean...?

A short note on the subsequent theme of clocks stopping in the vicinity of the two vampyresses (hey, CG, I'm thinking of you!) - this could be explained in different ways. It could be that they're subconsciously drawing the energy off the batteries, or a metaphor for their timelessness. I, personally, prefer to think of both of these theories of mine as true within the context of this movie.




When he, Ted, tries to leave for the second time, he is stopped by the police - and, to his horror, discovers Rupert and his car - or, more appropriately, Rupert's car with the young man dead inside. He is horrified and shocked - and returns to the castle... yet again. It seems as if something is drawing him there... and it's not just his curiousity and dread. He seems to be determined to find out what the secret of the castle and its beautiful female inhabitants is...




Vampyres is a beautiful movie. The camerawork is, for the 70s, brilliant - the pictures we are shown are beautiful and hauntingly evocative, and there's no single piece of dialogue that seems forced or out of place. Much is said without words - I especially applaud Murray Brown for his role of Ted, the man who comes back again and again for the vampire Fran - fascinated by her, infatuated with her - the mysterious woman whom he cannot fathom, whose very being he can only touch through the medium of his blood being licked off his wounds by her...

Special mentions also go to Marianne Morris, who plays the female vampire Fran, and her younger companion Miriam, who is played by the beautiful Anulka Dziubinska (only credited as Anulka in the movie's credits). The performances of these women is astonishing. It doesn't matter whether you like their looks or not - and as it's a movie from 1974, I doubt that many viewers in this day and age will see them as beautiful. However, in terms of the 70s, they are very beautiful indeed, and eroticism oozes from every single movement of them. It's in their movements, their smiles and the way they bear themselves. Their eyes alone say more than dialogue could - and, luckily, this isn't a dialogue-intensive movie.

A warning, though: If you're not into watching two women having a go at it whilst completely naked, kissing and playing and licking and doing other wonderful things to each other with the inclusion of bloodplay - don't watch this movie. If you have no problems with things like these, though... enjoy the ride.

This is the vampire movie I always wanted someone to make. And ever since Ive seen it for the first time about four years ago, this feeling hasn't changed. This movie is brutal and violent at times, yet sensuous and beautiful, filled with ardent splendor intermingling seamlessly with terror and violence. But in the end, beauty and eroticism prevail. At times, an almost dream-like quality fills the movie - and a tangible sense of despair, mixed with urgency.

Still one of my favourites in the vampire-subgenre.






9.5/10 ways to slowly drain a human of blood through subsequent sexual and sanguinarian feedings...

Whisper (2007)

The devil's work is child's play...

Cor 11:14 - And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.




Stewart Hendler surprises with a, forgive me the repetition, surprisingly good movie. The plot?

A group of three men and a woman kidnap a child, one David Sandborn (played by a convincing Blake Woodruff). But it's not that easy - one of the kidnappers, Max Truemont (as portrayed by Josh Holloway), has just been released from prison, and together with his fiancé Roxanne (Sarah Wayne Callies), he wants to build a new life for both of them by opening a diner However, he isn't granted the $50,000 loan he was building his plans on, and so the future looks more than bleak. But he wants to fulfill this dream, and with hesitation he teams up with his former colleague in crime, Sydney, and his sidekick Vincent - they are hired by a mysterious stranger, only known as a distorted voice on the phone. Their job? To kidnap David... which isn't that hard. The hard part is not to fall prey to the vicious mind-games the child is playing... and not to listen to the whispers filling their minds with images and ideas which are far from holy...




Really, I was surprised. Although we know that something is wrong with the child David as soon as we get to see him the first time - no normal kid controls cars with his mind, and no normal kid can control black wolves to do his bidding -, we still don't know what exactly it is that he's doing... or what exactly he is. But it all becomes perfectly clear with every minute of the movie.




David is, for all practical intentions, the 2007 version of The Omen's Damien. They even look similar, and I don't think that the very conservative dress of the child actor here was a coincidence - his whole demeanor, the way he carries himself and how he speaks literally screams "DAMIEN!!!". This can't just have been coincidence - and although it works out very well, I still would have appreciated a tad more originality.




Don't get me wrong, Blake Woodruff does a great job in this movie as the creepy kid with the creepy, supernatural powers (which he definitely doesn't use for good). It's just that I got the distinct impression that someone gave him a copy of Omen and told him to do just that... because that's how it comes across. Maybe I haven't watched enough movies about evil children yet, though...




Besides reminding me of Omen's Damien (believe it or not, I constantly have to keep myself from typing the word "Damien" when I want to type "David"), there's another eerie child that Woodruff's portrayal of Whisper's main character reminded me of: Caleb Temple, played by Lucas Black, in the 1995 TV series American Gothic (which, by the way, is awesomeness incarnate - if you don't know it yet, grab yourself one of the hard to find copies and enjoy it). Some of the scenes had an eerie similarity to the portrayal of David in Whisper.

But enough of that.




The camera is ...impressive at times. In some shots, the angles used are really interesting, adding to the oppressive and dark mood considerably.

Speaking of dark... this is a dark movie. The topic in question aside, the whole movie oozes darkness. Most of what we see happens at night, and the scenes which were shot during the day make much use of light and shadow - although, admittedly, at times it's a bit unbalanced in that regard, and shadow used too liberally.




Also, the colours fit in with the mood - mostly a palette of grey, white, blue and shadow (or, to put it differently - blue, the first royal colour of shadow). And yes, I am definitely considering shadow to be a colour in this context. See for yourself if you don't believe my judgment.




Another thing that might put viewers off is the religious/mythical background for the story which is told. I know a lot of people who'd rather watch their least favourite flick another time rather than watching a movie with religious symbolism present - Dante 01, of which a non-horror review is due soon, is one of the prime examples for this, but I've heard of people who refuse watching Rosemary's Baby or assorted stuff just because of the present YHVH/Satan dualism. Although I'm not a big fan of that particular religious paradigm myself, I enjoy movies with that sort of undertone. But maybe that's just me with my spleen when it comes to religious/supernatural movies...

But one has to admit it: Sound and imagery work in subtle favour of aforementioned religious/mythical background of Whisper.





6.75/10 children that really, really shouldn't play with crayons...

The Grudge (2004)

As of now, I've escaped the surge of J-horror and the assorted remakes the USA is producing with an alarming rate... until now, that is. For today, I shall watch my second J-horror flick. Or should this still be considered to be my first one? The first product of Japanese terror I ever watched was Takashi Miike's Imprint. So... let's just call this my first full-length J-horror flick.

The Grudge.
It never forgives. It never forgets.


The movie informs us that, when someone dies in the grip of powerful emotions, a curse is born that will haunt the place where it has been created. Given that Bill Pullman (playing college-teacher Peter Kirk) commits suicide within the first seconds of the movie, I can't shake the feeling that he has something to do with this mysterious curse... and damn, I am right.

Speaking of Bill Pullman: I can't remember when I last saw the man in a decent movie. He seems to have fallen on hard times these days. But suffice it to say that he actually has a role beyond that of moodily throwing himself off a balcony in The Grudge. He's actually important, although the reason why he is important (and why he throws himself off his very own balcony) is revealed much later in the movie. I can't blame Takashi Shimizu (who wrote and directed this movie, and is also the guy behind the Japanese Ju-On) for the late reveal, though - any movie that features Bill Pullman as the romantic love-interest would have to try and hide this fact as long as possible from the audience. I mean, I do not dislike the guy and don't think that he is... weird or something, but... romantic love interest? That's quite a stretch.

So... Sam Raimi presents: The Grudge. With Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Which sort of pisses me off - her presence means that she's not the one who suffers terribly and then goes insane and dies (because that's what I want to happen to her). She's death proof by virtue of being the female lead. Yikes.

Buffy and her boy toy Doug (played by Jason Behr) have moved to Japan (from the US of A), apparently because they're studying (though it's hard to picture Buffy in a lecture - nigh impossible, even). And for some reason, I don't believe her when she's going all philosophical about Buddhist rituals - not that I doubt that what she says is true, but it just seems that she's a bit retarded and reads the facts off some sheet of paper. And I don't buy her being able to read Japanese either. Dear Mr. Raimi or whoever else thought it would be a good idea to cast Buffy as the lead: Don't. Just... don't.

But this movie has Ted Raimi as well, which maketh me happy. One appearance by Ted Raimi can make me forgive all the major flaws of a movie.

I know, I know... this is just a movie... However, seeing Buffy doing chores makes me feel as if my soul is being lifted up by invisible choirs of angels. Because I hate doing chores, and just had to do some of them and will probably do the rest of them after this review/after I finished eating this pizza (spinach and cheese topping), of which Rincewind has taken a healthy bite already (which translates to "I gave him a slice of pizza in order to befriend him"...).

It has kitteh!*

And so, we hop back in time, just in order to arrive at this dark place as it was in the past - just in time to see Matthew Williams (William Mapother) and his family (Emma appears to be his mother) as they buy the accursed house - and Emma feels that something is wrong... but greed and assorted emotions do not just exist in The West(TM) - also the Japanese are affected by it, and so they buy a haunted house. Gosh darn, that's what I call bad luck.




What The Grudge manages to do is showing us how lost someone can feel in a strange, new land, without knowing the language OR being able to read the script. I've been lost in France without the ability to speak or understand the language, but at least English is something even the French should admit to know, and the script is still our Latin script. But losing both, script and language... I imagine that would be tough. Hell, it would make me nervous.

Kitteh! Going "meow"!*

Creepy kid. But not creepy enough - I keep thinking about its hair rather than how threatening it appears. But maybe that's just me... although, strictly speaking, children should be the ideal monster for me - other people are traumatised to death by clowns, bacteria, viruses, disease, snow (I just mention that because it's snowing outside), ponies, death... with my inherent dislike for small human critters (aka "children"), the movie-world could scare me into submission, theoretically speaking. But it never does, no matter how creepy the creepy small human critters are.




Oh dear. Buffy feels that there is "something" in the house she was found in. Oh dear. Oh dear. My mind automatically made that into "MY BUFFYSENSE IS TINGLING!"... great. Now I can't take the movie seriously anymore. Curse you, sarcasm-muscle!

One thing that I simply have to mention is that I totally approve of the use of teh intarwebz in The Grudge. All too often in movies, you see some nameless search machine showing up on a computer, or some sort of eye-cancer inducing website that seems to have escaped from the early to mid-nineties, complete with animated .gifs and colours that just make you want to die (the alternative would be to slowly torture the person to death who actually came up with such a desaster in the first place). Here, we get so see the familiar face of yahoo and the (to me) less familiar face of some Japanese newspaper, the Daily News Japan (which is, of course, fictional but really conveys a feeling of "it's good, this site can exist"... Font-recognition can be something comforting).

The concept is interesting: When dying in extreme rage and/or sorrow, at death, that part of the mind is imprinted in the area the death happened. Death becomes part of that place, and kills whoever it touches. Sort of like an infection - you can run, but you can't hide. The curse will get you, no matter where you are.




I am not familiar enough with Japanese mythology, fairytales, sagas and assorted things. It's occasions like these that make me want to learn a bit more about Japanese culture and mythology - whilst the concept is interesting, I wonder how differently it impacts Western audiences than it would with a, say, Japanese audience. I know from my own experience that horror movies based on figures or stories that I am familiar with have a much deeper impact on me than a movie which deals with something I have no single iota of knowledge of.

Anyways... the camera is, as could be expected, very good. It's not perfect, it's not flawless, it's not too original... but it's solid, and a few shots managed to really impress me. Most of them were the claustrophobic ones I have come to like in Raimi's work. As I haven't watched the original Japanese Ju-On yet, I can't say how much he, in his role as co-producer, has influenced this aspect of the movie, as I don't know Takashi Shimizu's style... but no matter who it is that is responsible for them - I still like them.

Award 3 points for unnecessarily long and complicated relative sentence serving absolutely no purpose other than making this review longer.

The sound of kittehs routinely used in The Grudge makes me happy - I love the critters far too much to be able to feel anything but love and loyalty to the race of my feline masters**.

Something that didn't exactly help with my enjoyment of this movie was the American cast. I think my feelings on Buffy are already clear enough - but in case my dislike has been too subtle, I shall make it abundantly clear: I don't like Sarah Michelle Gellar, for she is stupid and her acting is about the quality of a dead slug. She is routinely outplayed by everyone in everything I've ever seen her in - and that includes the more obnoxious characters in the Buffyverse.




Besides for Ted Raimi, whom I adore because he's so full of win and awesome, the whole rest of the American cast appears wooden and artificial. I enjoyed the scenes in which there were only Japanese actors around - by comparison, they are much better and ....livelier than the ones in which we are nearly drowned in a puddle of American-ness. I don't know why this movie was re-done for Western audiences - unless you count using wooden actors and cutting down on the plot.

Speaking of the plot... I really don't know whether it's good or bad. As I already stated, I like the idea behind the curse - the "infecting" of others with it by sheer localised contact. But the rest... *shakes head*
It's really not bad, and I can't talk about it without giving away everything... suffice it to say that I feel a bit ambivalent towards it. But judge The Grudge for yourself...***





5/10 awesome scenes with a dislocated lower jaw.



* This is proof that the ability of cats to drastically lessen human intelligence through mere close proximity also works through the medium of film. xkcd speaks truth.

** Only people who are owned by one or more cats will understand this.

*** See what I did there?! O_o

The Living and the Dead (2006)

I really don't know how to classify this movie - but that's not a bad thing at all. Let me try to explain...

Attention: screenshot - intensive.

The Brocklebanks are a weirdly dysfunctional family. Father Donald Brocklebank has, at the verge of bankruptcy, decided to leave the family manor Longleigh House for London, to get treatment of his terminally ill wife Nancy. The main problem, though, isn't Nancy's disease - it's their son, James, a young man who is a little bit... unstable.




I may have to define my use of the term 'unstable' a little bit more: His breakfast consists of medication. A lot of it. I have to take a lot of meds in the morning, but my pharmaceutical breakfast looks ridiculous compared to the amounts that James is taking - even when he's under-medicating himself. Because James needs his medication.





James seems to be on the verge of psychosis most of the time, his erratic behaviour getting more extreme. He seems to be aware of his condition, shooting himself up with medication, which seems to calm him down (I'd like to know what it is that he's injecting himself with).




His father, who has to leave the mansion they're living in (without any people working for them - it's just Donald, his wife and his insane son) and who appears to be strict, harsh even when dealing with James, shows a touching side of a father's love for his son when he finds him early on in the movie, a wound on his head from banging it against various objects, passed out on the kitchen floor. He may be harsh, but he does care for James - his pale, erratic son...






Something will go wrong, we realise, as James decides not to shoot himself his much-needed medicine the morning after his father has left for London.




He tells his mother that he will take care for her whilst her husband is away, and that the nurse which is supposed to do that cannot come. His mother is suspicious... and worried. She is bedridden and cannot care for James... who would need being cared for just as much as she does.




At minute 26, there is a sudden change in the tone of the movie. An urgency is gained that has not been present before, and it will be with us at certain times throughout the rest of The Living and the Dead.

Hectic. The focus shifts from James' mother to himself and his frantic experience of the world around him - dissociative, breaking apart. He reminds me of some of the schizophrenics I have met in associated hospitals, and his distorted perception of time also seems familiar, though in a less insane way. It hits a nerve... or two.




James decides to lock out the nurse (Sarah Ball) when she arrives, and this, for some reason, sends the woman into some nameless, urgent feeling of dread and panic. She leaves, and James is left with his mother - who doesn't want him to stay with her any longer, as she clearly sees the change taking place in her unstable, demented son.




He feeds her pills that she doesn't want to take, obviously scaring her. His aggression becomes more and more intense, and he's forcing her to swallow more pills after he attacks her. She has difficulties breathing and wants to speak to his father, but he becomes even more erratic and aggressive, yelling at her that he "is the man in the house".

Finally, his mother throws up the pills, and he is devastated, screaming and yelling at her while she flees in her wheelchair...




James has degraded into a raving madman as he watches his mother flee, falling out of her wheelchair onto the stairwell.




The second day arrives... and James doesn't take his medication. Again. And now, the movie truly begins... taking us with it on a meandering, surreal path through mind, illusion, reality and time - down the rabbit hole, towards the abyss, where Da'ath lurks, and with it - madness and despair.






This movie tells a story - a long, sad story, one of madness and loss, of pain and dissociation from reality. Its language is mainly the medium of pictures - it is hard to convey in words what each of those pictures alone says, on a multitude of levels. Opulent in its simplicity, I am confident to say that this movie is brilliant in its optical execution of a dreamlike, surreal experience that bespeaks a philosophical depth rarely seen in a conventional horror movie.




The eyes drink in the ever growing intensity of the pictures and scenes, whilst the mind struggles with making sense of it - what is real? What is illusion? What is future, what is past? Is there something like reality? What is madness, and what is not? Or is all madness? Time loses meaning, becomes something we cannot make sense of anymore. The Living And The Dead blends the various scenes and episodes that take place in a seamless way which creates the illusion of coherence where none exists - for there is no coherence left within the depths of psychosis.




This brings me to the second strong point of this movie: the acting. As we are following only three characters throughout the whole movie, we can see them in a variety of scenes which help to define their personalities. We know next to nothing about them - but yet we see into their souls, into their fears, despair and inner struggles - and their insanities. And all three main protagonists are doing a really great job.




Which impressed me most was the performance of Leo Bill, who played James Brocklebank (thank you, imdb.com, for the information on the family's last name). His portrayal of the character was most convincing, and he brought an unexpected depth to the staple idea of "the lunatic". It's because of him and through him that we experience the mixing of reality with illusion, of hallucination with reality, of hallucination with hallucination, of reality with reality. Kudos to him. His portrayal of body-wrecking physical and mental agony that comes in advanced stages of certain forms of psychotic attacks was stunning, and I applaud him for it.




There was a merciless realism to his portrayal of psychotic, dissociative behaviour. It touched me, because this is something very personal for me. It hits too close to home to be entirely comfortable.




Also impressive was Roger Lloyd-Pack, who played James' father, Mr. Donald Brocklebank. He certainly is a good actor, and although his performance was outshone by that of Leo Bill, he still brought life and depth to his character. Personally, though, I find that Kate Fahy ranks in on second place when it comes to the portrayal of the depth of a character. She plays James' mother with a natural ease that betrays her experience as a mother (this by no means implies that her kids are in any way like the fictional character of James Brocklebank). She's a really good actress for this sort of characterisation, as her portrayal of different emotional states was very convincing.




The stories we are being shown in The Living and the Dead are brilliant - because they are real, each single one of them. No matter what version of reality you want to see or will see if you don't embrace all of them as equally real - you will be touched.




It is a dreary movie - there is no joy in it, for even those precious few moments are overshadowed by the gloomy atmosphere of Longleigh House.




Much of the dark, but achingly beautiful mood of the movie is carried by the setting of the old, decaying manor. Set entirely within those brooding walls, the merciless maze of versions of reality gains an extra depth, one that perfectly represents the isolation which is such an integral part of The Living and the Dead.




Isolation - it rings through the movie as a central theme, made out of hollow echoes of bleak despair. Longleigh House is isolated, far outside in the countryside, far away from help. Donald Brocklebank is isolated - all wealth is lost, his wife terminally ill, and his son is lost to him. Nancy is isolated - her health is falling apart, and so is her family and her dreams. And James... James can't even reach outside himself, confined within the fractal madness of his own broken mind, fractalised, dissociative, fraying out at the borders. Reality - lost; to him as well as to us.




The camerawork is outstanding as well. Simon Rumley (who wrote, directed and produced The Living and the Dead) truly shines with this movie - it is executed nearly flawlessly on all levels. The use of light and shadow are brilliant, the camera's angles unusual but highly effective, the frantic editing of some scenes are blending seamlessly into the movie as a whole whilst still delivering the intensity and hectic, dissociative sense of urge that is so characteristic of James' perceptions, the pictures are beautiful... Flawless.




Weaving a net of sounds and impressions is the language. The dialogues never seem artificial or forced - there is, again, a stylistic minimalism at work here, which adds a particular feel of loneliness and - again - isolation to this piece of art. And the soundtrack by Richard Chester is of particular intensity as well. It is hard to describe, but the music has the effect of a painter's few final, highlighting strokes with the brush against the painting as a whole. It is admirable.

I don't know what to say.





11/10