
In the Old West, the assassination of an ageing cowboy is thwarted by a sultry vampiress, the would-be killer left for dead in the dust. A hundred years later an ancient obsidian mirror, long unearthed from the Mesopotamian desert, is liberated from an American collector's vault and illegally transported to Europe. Jacob, an unscrupulous antiques dealer, moves to a remote farmhouse with his pregnant young wife, Lauren, and his difficult ward, Rachel. His goals are clear: to pass this near-priceless mirror to the highest bidder, and to prevent these two women from ripping each other apart. Nearby, a beautiful ornithologist, in nocturnal pursuit of the Screech Owl, is disturbed in her hide by a couple of noisy hikers. Her efforts ruined, she joins them by their campfire, but when one of them is mysteriously mutilated in the woods, she and the other are forced to flee and seek refuge at Jacob's farm. Something has been unleashed into the dark of that night...
Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus is a beautiful, poignant, enraging, gut-wrenching, and heartbreaking film about the trauma and harm conversion therapy inflicts on young queer people. Even though its classification as horror holds, the emotional bond between the two main characters, Naim and Ryan, elevates the story into a realistic romantic drama on par with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
"Be good. It doesn’t mean you can’t be tough. It doesn’t mean you always have to be nice. Just be good."
The problem isn’t that it’s bad. It's good. But it fails to stand out from a crowd of similar films.
Dramatic Horror!!! Wait, what?? Did you say "dramatic horror"?? IS there such a thing?? I mean, TRULY. Well, if San Francisco-based, Pakistani-born independent filmmaker Dr. Hassan Zee and this film critic have anything to say about it, there IS such a beast as experienced through the director's newest feature film set to officially debut October 4th in the City by the Bay. Folks, indie film will always be a bastion of experimentation and originality, and this film for me fits that bill.
'Living' dives into many themes that we can all understand regardless of our cultural backgrounds. We can see this through the shared similarities between 'Ikiru' and 'Living'.