Let the Corpses Tan (Belgium, 2017)
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s
Let the Corpses Tan is a hyper-stylized sensory assault—an unapologetic, sun-scorched fever dream that resists easy categorization. Part neo-Western, part psychedelic crime thriller, and part homage to 1970s Eurocrime, the film operates less as a narrative and more as an experience, pulsating with heat, sweat, and gunfire echoing through the hills.
The plot is pulp fiction at its most skeletal: a heist, a hideout, and an extended, near-hallucinatory firefight as shifting alliances lead to bloodshed under the merciless sun. But Cattet and Forzani treat the story, and the characters, as mere afterthoughts—distractions from their relentless pursuit of imagery. The characters exist less as people than as archetypes: the thief, the cop, the femme fatale. If the film has a protagonist, it’s anyone’s guess who that might be.
Visually,
Let the Corpses Tan is striking. Manu Dacosse’s cinematography revels in deep blues and scorching golds, extreme close-ups, and fractured perspectives. The editing is razor-sharp, fetishizing simple actions into moments of heightened tension: a gun cocked, a bullet casing hitting the ground, leather creaking (somewhere, a leather freak likely fapped to death over this film), the slow drip of sweat down sunburned skin. Time bends and collapses in a haze of repetition, dream sequences (featuring golden showers and champagne-lactating breasts), and feverish hallucinations that only deepen the film’s disorienting effect.
Yet for all its visual bravado, the film is exhausting and ultimately hollow. Cattet and Forzani are gifted stylists, but their relentless aestheticism smothers the experience. Scenes repeat, tension is stretched past its breaking point, and the barrage of stylistic flourishes—split screens, extreme close-ups, aggressive sound design—becomes numbing rather than exhilarating.
Violence here is treated as pure cinematic ritual. Gunfights unfold in balletic slow motion, blood pools like molten gold, and each bullet wound is lovingly rendered. But while filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino use stylized violence to explore character and morality,
Let the Corpses Tan indulges in violence for its own sake. The result is a film that is visually dazzling but emotionally inert.
There is undeniable artistry at work, but
Let the Corpses Tan remains a frustrating exercise—more an experiment in aesthetic excess than a fully realized film. For those who prize style above all else, it may be a mesmerizing spectacle. But at a lean 90 minutes, I was still relieved when it ended.
A film like this should leave you exhilarated. Instead, it feels like a gorgeous but empty shell. Still, it’s worth watching—if only to witness its sheer commitment to visual excess.
Rating: 6/10
