User Reviews

I believe that people will enjoy this film in direct proportion to two things: your appreciation for bravura cinematic style, and your hard-wired facial recognition talents. The two collide immediately, as we are introduced to some of the characters (I think) via extreme closeups of eyes and mouths. The filmmakers avoid all of the usual techniques for establishing character identity and relationships, especially among members of the gang. I can't honestly say that I know what happened in the film's last third: who betrayed whom, who was firing what weapons, and so on.

In the meantime, though, I saw things, cool things, good things, that I'd never seen before on a movie screen. The stylistic flourishes kept me just engaged enough to not walk out. In the end I'm glad I saw it and even more glad that I didn't pay for a ticket (I have a membership at the local arthouse cinema). Mostly I'm frustrated, because if the filmmakers would put storytelling first and then maximize style as much as possible (like, you know, every other filmmaker on the planet) rather than vice versa, this could have been a kinky classic.

The people who are giving this really bad reviews must be knuckle draggers. This is a very unique and interesting flawed thriller. Flawed because is a little hard to follow with all the time jumps and inserted symbolism.

But if you stick with it you should be rewarded with a very interesting layered movie like you have not seen in a long long while.

It's a thinking man's (or woman's) movie. Pay attention.

First, let me tell you that I highly liked the Jean Patrick Manchette's novel which this film is based on, and written and - or - produced by Doug headline - Manchette's son. That said, this film is faithful to the novel written back in 1971. At least if you consider the narrative ark, the basic scheme. This book from 1971 was a turn in the French crime novels history; it was one of the last French crime novels where it was question of gangsters, bank robbers and so on, which was a topic usually spoken about since the fifties and Auguste Le Breton, José Giovanni and so on...After this novel it was the beginning of the post May 68 era and the rise of the "subversive" crime novels, inspired by extreme left winged ideas and topics, stories highly against the establishment and political power. Manchette was the master in this field. He opened the road. Back to this film, it is faithful to the book BUT the aesthetic aspect is too much hysterical, totally crazy. NOT FOR ME. Most of the scenes are unexplained, absolutely senseless, you wonder where the screenplay drives at. This was unbearable for me. Sorry. I won't say that's a crap movie. No, but simply not for my taste. But I am aware that this feature is a big tribute to the sixties ear and the spaghetti western in particular. I won't even mention the Ennion Morricone like score. This movie seems most of the time boring. I nearly fell asleep at some times. I deserves although to be seen. The armored truck heist sequence is also a tribute, but to Jean Pierre Melville's masterpiece THE SECOND BREATHE, in the heist attack scene, on the lost sea side mountain road.

This movie is like a pasta dish, with or without red pepper. It could have been told in a raw way, without all those artifices. But maybe some audiences could have found this tasteless. So they used this camera eccentricities.

See for yourself.

It's not the first movie I've seen from the two filmmaker, who are also together privately. But it seemed like this was going to be the one that was "normal" ... made sense somehow. And I guess you can follow this better than the others, but if you are not prepared for the weird and strange ... you might have issues with the movie.

Because while it is quite coherent, it does have elements in it, that are not or can not be considered as anything in the realm of normal or real. But it's their style - you'll either cherish and love it or are annoyed and bewildered by it. I'm intrigued by it to say the least. And while I rated it slightly lower than the previous effort, it does not mean I#m getting fed up with the style - because remember: it is all about the stlye!

LET THE CORPSES TAN (LAISSEZ BRONZER LES CADAVRES!): A pretty good shootout thriller which is a bit messed up by philosophical and avant garde pretensions in fantasy sequences (some may be memories) and stilted dialogue. They don't quite negate the negation but might have negated the the film. Fortunately the action shots triumph over the postmodernist pisstakes to acheive a satisfactory synthesis.

An artist and a novelist are living in a series of ruins on a hilltop in the South of France, their lawyer arrives but has made a pact with a gang of Gold Bullion robbers to use the abode as a hideout. Meanwhile the author's wife arrives with her maid and a child (snatched) from a previous realtionship. Actually the robbers meet them by the hitching and give them a lift. Motorcycle cops investigating both the robbery and child abduction come to the ruins.

A many sided battle ensues with shifting allegiances taking place. This is very much a homage to/pastiche of the exploitation euro-Gangster films of the 1970's but is weakened by (imho) unnecessary psychedelic additions. The only effects I really appreciated was the effect of the Gold on the crooks, their faces tanned with avarice as they gazed on the bullion. Reminiscent of scenes from The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre. Some really savage and bloody scenes.

Directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani with the assistance of novelist Jean-Pierre Bastid on the screenplay would have delivered a pretty good thriller if they'd left out or toned down the biarrare elements. 6.5/10

An ordinary heist story, told by the most weird way. There is a lot of senseless crap in this movie. If you can manage to dump it from your mind and you prefer visual story telling instead of a talking heads movie, this one is for you! Visuals are stunning, camera work is on a godly level, acting is also good. What I did not like is the tons of senseless moments which do not bring any added value, nor they are visually appealing, neither they tell some of the story. Some of the character's decisions also seemed a bit senseless too. It's basically a drug infused spaghetti western with an excellent camera work.

All style, no substance. It's extremely hard to follow after the setup establishes the theft of gold bullion, with some of the worst storytelling and worst character development I've ever seen. We never learn anything about these people, and have little idea who's shooting who over most of the film; meanwhile the directors give us pointless cuts back in time which add nothing, and the film quickly descends into unexplained scenes of sex, violence, crucifixion, and urination. This dreamy/nightmarish style leads to interesting imagery at times and the scenery in the ruins overlooking the azure waters of Corsica is striking, but mostly the film is an exercise in wild surrealism and a mashup of old film references that was more frustrating than compelling, at least for me.

The concept is simple: a gang of criminals stay at the isolated hideaway of an eccentric artist and her lover after stealing 250 kilos of gold. Shenanigans ensue. And they ensue quite strangely.

This is a psychosexual surrealist film disguised as a spaghetti western. Many are judging this strictly in its capacity as a spaghetti western, claiming that the strange, surreal scenes were merely a waste of time. If anything, the opposite is true. The power dynamics, back-stabbing, and fights for survival are secondary to this film's main goal, which seems to be as follows: to show (as stylishly and creatively as possible) these characters' darkest impulses and fantasies. Very similar to their last work, The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani place equal importance upon what's going on in the "reality" of the film and what's going on inside the characters' heads. One character's overwhelming and confounding sexual fantasy might be given just as much dramatic weight and screen-time as another character shifting their allegiance or being killed, despite the fact that one of these scenes makes sense in the context of the plot and the other does not. This feels less like watching a spaghetti western than it does like watching a nightmarish wet dream of someone who had seen a spaghetti western the night before.

The nature of this film makes it difficult to give it a rating. The mish-mosh of high-brow and low-brow elements makes it very hard to compare to any other films. Yes, people always compare this directing duo to Argento, but their obsessive need to explore the subconscious fantasies of their characters is vastly different than any of Argento's work. Their films take place maybe 80% in the characters' heads whereas Argento's films usually take place firmly in reality (albeit, a strange, uniquely lit reality). All in all, I would give it an 8/10, and that rating is hard-earned through ingenuity alone. The characters can barely be called archetypes, there's no one to sympathize with, you barely know anything about any of the characters save for the most banal backstories, the plot isn't given much attention, and there seem to be major moments that are oddly glossed over. Instead of focusing on all these elements that would make a movie "good" in a traditional sense, Cattet and Forzani dive deep into a sexual dreamland of violence and fantasy and do so with constant and I mean CONSTANT creativity.

Almost every single scene is filmed in a way that feels enchantingly fresh. Since it pulls heavily from the spaghetti western genre (a genre that I adore, but has been done into the ground, then spoofed into the ground, then tributed into the ground), there are scene types that we've all watched a thousand times before. Predictable moments that you'd expect to be filmed in a cookie cutter fashion. Instead, each scene is treated like a feverish, experimental short film designed to get the general gist of plot details across, but, much more importantly, utterly enrapture its audience with shockingly gorgeous cinematography, mind-bending editing, and sound design that will have you weeping with joy, all to communicate a sense of otherworldly, darkly violent sexual tension. Admittedly, for every experimental scene that works, there's one that doesn't, but because of the sheer quantity of risks this film is willing to take, the missteps are more than forgivable. I found myself thinking of Hausu while watching it, another film where at one moment I would say to myself, "Why would they film it like this...?" and in the next, "I don't know. But I love it." This is the result of two filmmakers having unabashed fun with their medium and I personally found their subversive glee to be infectious. If you want to see a traditional, Oscar-ready thriller...avoid this one. But if you want to see a whacky fun-house of experimental style, go get your ticket now.

Seeking to merge surrealist aesthetics with a vintage western shoot-em-up, a move somewhat precedented by El Topo, though with few other contemporaries.

Both action flicks and art films can often fall into the trap of putting style before storyline, and Let the Corpses Tan brings out the worst of both worlds in this respect. Nondescript characters are briefly introduced then thrown into a web of double crosses and crossfire. Add to this the wilful obscurity and non linear timeline, and you're left scratching your head wondering what's going on through the bulk of the film.

But it looks bloody fantastic. Capturing the majestic camera work of it's 70s influences, with vivid colours and creative angles capturing the natural beauty of the Mediterranean filming location. The abstract interludes are nothing if not great eye candy, crashing a psychedelic drug trip against the calculated cool of Quentin Tarantino.

It all serves to ask the question of how entertained can you be by something with visual appeal but little in the way of a discernible plot? The answer for me was: somewhat. I felt initially impressed, but my attention began to fade as it wore on. I'm sure this will polarize others, so it's good to know where your priorities lie before going in.

A road gang hijacks a gold shipment, kills the driver and escorts, then hides out at a picturesque seaside retreat occupied by an artist and her retinue.

More unexpected and unwanted visitors arrive. So do the cops. Much gunfire, double dealing, and bloodshed occur along with weird and surreal erotic dreams interspersed with action.

That's the movie in a nutshell. What propels it far beyond the blood-and-gore 70s Italian exploitation flicks it seems to emulate is everything else: photography, acting, editing, sound (someone obviously has a fetish for creaking leather clothing), and scenery.

Ah, the scenery! A crumbling seaside Mediterranean cluster of decrepit interconnected walls and broken down church are so much a part of the action one can almost imagine them taking cues from the director.

It doesn't always make sense. This is partly due to sparse subtitling (it's in French) and partly to the simple fact that at times it's almost impossible to keep track of who are the "good" guys and who are the "bad" guys. (Not that it makes a difference!)

But cinematically this film is a real hoot especially if you enjoy occasional off-the-wall movie nonsense produced to sound and look like High Art despite the underlying tenuous threads of a plot.

Recommended. Sort of.

I sat down to watch the 2017 French movie "Laissez bronzer les cadavres" (aka "Let the Corpses Tan") without having heard about it. But I read the synopsis and I must admit that it sounded like this movie from writers and directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani could be interesting.

But it turned out that it wasn't...

This movie was strange. From the way the movie was shot, which was a very confusing and constant jumping back and forth between different angles and view points from the different characters, to a very messy and entangled storyline that made little or no sense, to the whole aspect of not knowing what was actually going on.

Yeah, directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani just went overboard with the avantgarde approach to the movie, and it resulted in a bizarre mess of a movie that made no sense and provided no entertainment. I actually gave up on the movie about halfway through. At that point I just couldn't take it anymore, as nothing in the movie felt entertaining, and the fact that nothing felt complete or wholehearted in the movie just dragged it even further down.

Now, I am sure that the actors and actresses were putting on good enough acting performances, though there wasn't much of any drama acting or anything, it was mostly just people running to and from and shooting randomly. Oh, and I nearly forgot, the characters in the movie were about as interesting a grains of sand.

Nay, this movie was a massive swing and a miss from writers and directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, and I was more than disappointed with what the movie turned out to be, because the synopsis made it could like it had potential for being a watchable movie.

The movie's cover was rather interesting and very much something that I hadn't seen presented in such a manner on a movie cover before. But the movie itself, well, you get where I'm going here.

My rating of "Let the Corpses Tan" lands on a three out of ten stars, based mostly upon the production value of the movie. In terms of entertainment, then "Let the Corpses Tan" failed horribly.

The directors of Let The Corpses Tan -- Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani -- are more preoccupied with arty shots, clever editing, moments of surreality, and fancy camerawork than in telling a decent story. It's as though the film-makers crawled inside my head, discovered everything I hate about arthouse cinema, and put it all into this one movie. At times, the pretentiousness is so extreme that it feels like a pastiche of arthouse, although I'm fairly certain that this is not the case: no-one in their right mind would waste the time, money and effort to do that.

At the core of the film is a classic 'heist gone wrong' scenario, a group of armed robbers making their way to a remote hideout after stealing a fortune in gold bullion, where greed, betrayal and a stubborn cop causes problems. Many a great film has been made with similar material, but Cattet and Forzani's showy treatment and extremely offbeat visuals make this a totally confusing chore from start to finish. There are lots of close-ups of eyes and gun barrels, annoying out of sequence scenes and multiple different viewpoints of the same action, plus tons of bizarre moments that are never explained: ants crawling on an aerial photo of the hideout, a silhouetted naked woman who pees on a man's head, a lady having her dress machine-gunned off, and gold that turns into liquid when hit by bullets. The last half an hour or so consists of choppily edited gunfire, all shot so as to make it impossible to work out who is firing at who.

1/10. Hifalutin drivel of the worst kind.

Dang. Can we get some more arthouse action movies like this, please? This movie was a freaking blast.

"Let the Corpses Tan" is a highly stylized neo-spaghetti western (complete with a Morricone score!), and for all I know it's a pioneer in it's genre, because I've never seen anything like this: it's exciting, sometimes intense, and undeniably weird. To be fair, the weirdness in this movie works wonders up to a point, but there are other moments where I had no idea what the hell was going on, because (dare I say it, and risk angering the cinephiles?) the film was a bit too stylized at times, particularly when it came to the frenetically paced editing during the shootouts, and the rapid back and forth flitting between time. Still, if you've got a smidge of patience and a bit of imagination, you can totally understand what the directors are getting at, even if they are showing the audience a fully nude woman whose been painted gold and is peeing on a man's head whose been buried up to his neck.

It makes sense, trust me; you've just got to work with the movie.

Well, here's one issue we can discern right away: this film is blithely imitative. Nods or homages are one matter, but without a supple, delicate hand to guide the intention, any passing familiarity to other works or filmmakers is blunt and heavy-handed to the point of irritation. Not even ten minutes have passed and I see Ennio Morricone, Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, Jay Rabinowitz, and more, recalled with a forcefulness that's distinctly off-putting. That forcefulness readily applies or extends to the direction, cinematography, editing, sound design, dialogue, acting, music, and effects, and arguably even to the production design, costume design, hair, and makeup. This isn't to say that 'Laissez bronzer les cadavres,' or 'Let the corpses tan,' can't still be enjoyable and worthwhile, but it's not an encouraging start, and the brusqueness, gawkiness, and flat-out aggressiveness of the project continues to be emphatically bothersome.

True, the filming locations are gorgeous. I do like the music selections themselves; would that the audio weren't so imbalanced, with the music egregiously high in the mix. Most bits and pieces here are just fine in and of themselves, in fact - or at least they are on paper, and would be in practice if they were approached with even the slightest sense of tact or nuance. Yet whether one wishes to attribute the tiresome zealousness of the presentation to filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani alone, or also lay some responsibility on the shoulders of all other contributors, as we see it the picture is so impetuous and severe in its fundamental construction that it becomes taxing. By the time only one-third of the length has elapsed it feels like we've been watching for much longer. What it comes down to is this: there is earnest substance in 'Laissez bronzer les cadavres' as a violent thriller, but that substance is distinctly overwhelmed and almost entirely subsumed by the prioritization of Style, Style, Style. You've heard of "Location, Location, Location?" Well, here we are.

There's actually a lot to like here. Consider the root idea by itself, and we have a compelling, hard-charging action-crime flick on our hands, even if the discrete course of events is at most a tertiary concern. I recognize the skill and intelligence that shaped this feature, and that was poured into every component part. There are terrific ideas here, in pretty much every regard. I sharply disagree with the choices of how this was put together, however, including far too many embellishments that are supposed to lend flavor but which instead just come off as self-indulgent excess, especially in light of the general ethos behind the craftsmanship. I suppose it's also worth mentioning that the movie isn't very good at introducing or identifying characters, though in fairness this facet hardly matters; the violence, murder, and betrayal are clear enough without elucidation in the script of who is who, or where exactly their allegiances lie. More troubling is that some narrative elements go completely unexplained as they present; who is "the golden woman?" Beats me.

Factor in frenetic pacing in the direction and deliberately disjointed sequencing, and the unfortunate result is that the genuine value that 'Laissez bronzer les cadavres' has to offer is at best equaled and at worst far outweighed and dampened by Cattet and Forzani's extreme favor of flashy zest and flair over function, let alone mindfulness. There really is a lot that's done well here, but the sad truth is that the filmmakers' impulses needed to be significantly reined in, and the entertainment is not only reduced by the underlying slant but also specifically takes hits from those ways in which the presentation is heedlessly overdone. I assume that the novel this is based on is more lucid; I certainly hope so, at least, for the sake of Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid. One way or another, the fate of this 2017 picture is sealed. By all means, I'm glad for those who get more out of this and think it's a really great time, but I'm much less than fully convinced. For what it's worth, I look forward to checking out more from all involved, if only out of curiosity, yet 'Laissez bronzer les cadavres' itself is best reserved for a niche audience of which I am not part.

Loved it...the beginning had a classic spaghetti western feel to it. Highly recommended

I swear to all the Gods; not just one just to be safe, that over 50% of your time (which must not be valuable if you're watching this film) is spent w/camera close-up looking at the eyes or mouth or face of the half dozen or so characters in this film. I'm guessing, since there's no explanation as to what's going on (at least that can figured out by any one with a grade school education) that this is an "homage" (haha)by writer/director/editor thinking they're snobbishly clever/artsy cutesy. Another 40% is spent on people boringly hanging out in an abandoned village. Final 10% is some not clear shooting between a couple of cops and the aforementioned peoples. A classic ff to save life time forgettable 90 min.

Did Goddard direct this film or Kenneth Anger? The film is reminiscent of Experimental films in the 60s and 70s in the US with more surrealism than realism. The DVD cover gives away the plot. Lots of style, no substance. Can only sum up film with 'bank robbery gone bad". I assume. I am reminded of an art work whose method of expression far exceeds the ideas embodied in it. I.e. what the hell was this all about. You could call it imagistic film making. That is, the film is what is shown on the screen, bullet holes, angry faces, female urine flow, more bullet holes, gun sounds, explosions, dream imagery, and what is that shot about? type structure. That sums up the film, other than there is a bank robbery and cops and robbers get shot. The scene where the girls red dress is shot to pieces and torn off her body by bullets is interesting. Kind of an homage to spaghetti westerns. It is not dazzling but tedious. But nevertheless, experimental films like this are important...important to let you know to really appreciate films like Once Upon a Time in the West for its brilliance. You cannot write a spoiler to this film. It is impossible, because you don't know how it ends. It doesn't 'end', it just kind of stops. Best viewed whilst tripping on some kind of substance.

I am a fan of author Jean-Patrick Manchette who co wrote the original story this movie is based upon back in the 70s. I love his European flavored pulp novels with their exaggerated violence and consciously sensasional plots. This movies holds up well to that motif.

There's going to be a lot of people who won't like Corpses/Cadavers. Two viewers got up and walked out during the screening I attended. I pretty much loved it.

The other reviews are accurate. It is reminiscent of an Italian spaghetti western except with modern day gangsters. The violence is sudden and brutal with metaphorical elements that tie the cinematography back to its art house foundation. Splattered blood becomes drops of liquid gold, as does well aimed streams of urine. Sexually charged scenes move back and forth in time to provide the viewer with a well intended sense of bewilderment.

All of these techniques are an effort to capture the nuiance of Manchette's prose. Although I have not read the story this movie is based upon, I recognize the characters and settings in Manchette's other works.

With that in mind, this movie actually exceeded my expectations.

Imagine this. Go to an art exhibition and pick any piece of art work and strap yourself to a seat staring at nothing but that art work for an hour and a half straight which actually feels more like three hours and this is what it was like watching this crap.

When I first strapped this movie on (yes, this film felt like I was wearing it as opposed to simply watching), I thought it was a spiritual sequel to Alejandro Jodorowsky's surrealistic offering "El Topo." In fact, it reminded me so much of that as well as his other film, "The Holy Mountain", that I thought this offering was also his, albeit a French version of his Spanish fare. That said, you really have to get used to the constant extreme close ups of mouths and eyes, abrupt sound collages, and fantastic, surrealistic, brightly-lit, super colourful images. If those elements are too jarring, it's best you look elsewhere for entertainment. Gore hounds, however, will appreciate "Let The Corpses Tan." If, however, you're looking for a straight, by the book, Point A to Point B story, this isn't for you.

What a pretentious piece of s***. 1 star due to some good shots.