Verdict
Summary
We Are the Flesh is challenging and disturbing but if you’re looking for something original then it’s worth tracking down.
Plot: After wandering a ruined city for years in search of food and shelter, two siblings find their way into one of the last remaining buildings. Inside, they find a man who will make them a dangerous offer to survive the outside world.
Review: The apocalypse has rendered the world a lost and desolate place. A brother and sister pair (Diego Gamaliel and Maria Evoli) wanders into a dilapidated building and finds a disheveled man who has learned how to survive on distilled bread and eggs. The man (played by Noe Hernandez) is obviously out of his mind: He has been alone so long that he has begun to embrace the shadows as an extension of his psyche. He feeds the newcomers, and he enlists them in a project that requires them to help him transform the shelter into a cardboard womb, ensconcing them in a fabric of his strange philosophy. Over the weeks and months, he pressures them into participating in strange rituals: he encourages them to engage in sexual practices, and as the brother and sister become corrupted by his urgings, the man dies, leaving them to their own devices, alone and without a provider. They descend into depravity, losing themselves in their blasphemies, and the dead man is reborn from the walls and resumes his puppetry over them, but with a newfound gusto. The apocalypse begins anew with these three.
Made in Mexico and infusing a chaotic philosophy wrapped in sexual, violent dread, We Are the Flesh is a valid (and very original) entry in post-apocalyptic cinema, but it’s more than that. It’s a coming of age allegory, it’s a twisted drama of devastating proportions, and it’s a Fibonacci spiral of weird images that will probably stay with you for a long time. It’s sexually graphic (and frankly pornographic in some scenes), it’s challenging, and definitely not for everyone. From writer/director Emiliano Rocha Minter, We Are the Flesh is an art house apocalyptic demon, seeking minds to worm into. If you like this, check out Orion with David Arquette.
Arrow Video has just released We Are the Flesh onto DVD and Blu-ray. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and if you missed the brief theatrical release earlier this year, this is the best way to get acquainted with it. Arrow’s disc includes video interviews, two short films by the director, and more.