Twin Peaks Fan Film Unravels in Poland
DIRECTED BY COSMOTROPIA DE XAM/2017 (“English Year”)
DVD STREET DATE: APRIL 30, 2024/REDEMPTION FILMS (via Kino Lorber)
Little is obvious about the experimental lo-fi peculiarity Phantasmagoria other than this: someone watched an awful lot of Twin Peaks. Twin Peaks with, perhaps, a chaser of other David Lynch projects. This is aparent almost immediately, as our quirky protagonist (Rachel Audrey) introduces herself as “Diane Cooper” while speaking into a handheld recording device. She is some sort of investigator headed off on a special case to look into strange occurrences in a small town. Is this intended to be the unseen “Diane” whom Twin Peaks’ Special Agent Dale Cooper is always speaking to into his own handheld recording device? (Yes. Yes it is).
Once to her overseas destination (somewhere in Poland, for reals), she meets Valentina Crepax, another enigmatic odd duck, played by Mari K. “How many more are like this…?,” she inquires. Hard to say, but if the question is directed at Phantasmagoria itself, there’s at least one more- 2018’s Phantasmagoria 2: Labyrinths of blood. That film is longer and has more than two actors in it. Hopefully it’s shot better than this one, which wears its lo-fi psychotronic amateur nature on its weird sleeves.
“The Beast”, Crepax says, is following her. With no beast apparent, Cooper deduces that something must be infecting the water that’s causing such hallucinations. Or, better yet, maybe is not the water itself, but the gas that’s coming off of the water that’s doing it…? Before any answers can be arrived at, the whole thing goes crazy. Phantasmagoria spirals into a longwinded dream sequence of lens distortion, eating and regurgitating metallic worms, Crepax as a topless nun, strange abuse with a wooden crucifix, and yet more warped sonic assaults taking over the soundtrack. The music is cool (the actresses, making this whole thing up as they go, were previously musicians), but the mix is crappy.
One of the young women awakens to the revelation that “Everyone should wear a gas mask.” The significance of this pronouncement is never very apparent, though I suppose it’s the sort of advice that couldn’t hurt, gas on the water and all…. And then, at the forty-six-minute mark, split screen! One side goes through old trinkets while the other side pages through a reptile book. Does Jean-Luc Godard know about this? Never mind, he’s dead. Anyhow, a prolonged exorcism scene follows, dominated by lots of convulsing, writhing, gagging, and gasping.
We’re told on the new Redemption Films DVD edition of Phantasmagoria that, “Both films were restored in 2K by Waka Films in 2019 with the support of the Institut français – Cinémathèque Afrique and the CNC at Éclair Laboratories from the original negative.” Does this mean Phantasmagoria and Phantasmagoria 2? Or is it talking about the other “film” on this disc, the seven-minute experimental short “The Contaminated Photos of Valentina Crepax”, created by director Cosmotropia De Xam and Mari K? (Don’t look for it on Letterboxd, it’s not there. Not at the time of this writing, at least).
Giving credit where credit’s due, the end credits credit the following: “The Twin Peaks Dictaphone as the diary of Diane Cooper.” This branded piece of vintage technology appears to be the grandest extent of the props budget. On the DVD’s surprisingly long bonus features menu, there are five short installments of “Diane Cooper Investigates”, wherein Audrey, as her likely-autistic character, sits at a desk (the Twin Peaks Gold Box DVD collection on a shelf next to her) in what appears to be the hallway of a house, and calmly obsesses about her malfunctioning dictaphone. Along the way, she manages to promote Phantasmagoria. Since these bits take place in the early 1990s, her copy of the film arrives on videotape. (She says it’s Betamax, but as a former Betamax kid of the ‘80s, that’s not Betamax!)
Some overall clarification (but not much, lest the mystique be tarnished) comes in the DVD’s bonus features, particularly the video Q&A with Rachel Audrey & Mari K at something called the BUT (B Movie Underground & Trash) Film Festival, in Amsterdam. In front of what has to be a rather small gathering (this festival appears to be happening in a very micro microcinema, or maybe someone’s basement), Audrey shares their overtly Lynchian influence. Their love of all things David Lynch runs so deep that they were led to shoot much of Phantasmagoria in Poland, to utilize some of the same location Lynch used in Inland Empire. They also promise answers to the film’s unresolved mysteries in part two, which, as previously noted, now exists.
Phantasmagoria, while not great and sometimes even irritating, is nevertheless compelling. Compelling enough that I’d watch part two, why not. The Redemption DVD, however, is unsurprisingly not of the highest quality. Everything plays as it should, but little errors like labeling every installment of “Diane Cooper Investigates” as “Diana Cooper Investigates” don’t help the general perception that this disc and others on the label dropped out of a portal from a 2002 Suncoast Video five-dollar bin. Yet somehow, that’s all of a piece here. There’s not enough pieces, and they don’t fit, but it’s of a piece all the same.
Special Features:
• Five Episodes of Diane Cooper Investigates
• The Contaminated Photos of Valentina Crepax
• Q&A with Rachel Audrey & Mari K at BUT Film Festival
• Mater Suspiria Vision – Metamorfose der Bestien (Music Video)
• Original Trailer
• Stills Gallery