Trance (2013)

Genre : Crime/Drama
Country : UK

Cast :
James McAvoy : Simon
Rosario Dawson : Elizabeth
Vincent Cassel : Franck

Director :
Danny Boyle

Summary
A fine art auctioneer mixed up with a gang joins forces with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster than anyone could have anticipated.

My opinion
An intense beginning, a middle that makes you sprawl in your sofa and a finale where you're tossed back and forth by an accumulation of twists. That's just about the brief summary that I can make here. The visual way of conveying and the atmospheric soundtrack aren't turning this into a real high flyer eventually.

The various plot twists may indicate two things : a ruse to hide the weak storyline or the director himself lost it completely. Based on the article from nu.nl I gamble on the second. It's an art film. That's indisputable. The stylized camera moves and the sometimes dazzling neon-like colors show this directly. Ultimately it's bout the art world and the artificial manipulation of one's consciousness through hypnosis.

McAvoy and Dawson both deliver a strong performance. Unfortunately, I'll remember Dawson only from her hairless "piggy bank slot". But actually that image won't be a reason to re-watch the movie. Simply google "Rosario Dawson nude"  and you get a perfect screenshot of this fragment.

Surprisingly, the action scenes were quite right-in-the-face aggressive and realistic. I didn't expect that in this movie.

I thought it was a mediocre movie eventually. And I really don't like a movie to end up in such a way that you can view and interpret it in different ways. To me that's like modern art. Eventually you see something you think you should see, or what someone thinks it is, using an obscure description with many expensive and intellectual expressions (annoying posturing for me).

A work of art without a soul.

My rating 3/10
Links : IMDB