Scarlet Red
14 mins | Belgium | 2020
(THIS FILM WAS PART OF OUR 2022 FESTIVAL LINEUP AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE ON THE SLAMDANCE CHANNEL) Terror, war and disease rage furiously abroad. Inside the deep seclusion of his secured palace, King Prospero entertains himself and his fellowmen at a ball. Unusual magnificence is within but as time passes a scarlet red figure closes by. ”Scarlet Red leads us, through a succession of retro-futuristic tableaus, into a dark and strange atmosphere . Abandoned buildings ,and historical futuristisch costumes for the actors, mixed with nowadays artefacts as masks, weapons, bombbelts, symbolise “things that happen today” . “This film catches us and could be labeled into more than one categorie. “ “The story is a visual interpretation of an EAP novelle following a king who terrorizes a plague- ridden peasantry while merrymaking in a lonely castle with his jaded courtiers. A unified mood of fear and horror makes “Scarlet Red” an alienating visual and audiophonic experience as a 21th century retrofuturistic reinvention of an Edgar Allen Poe story, expressing the plain stupidity and painful haughtiness of war lords willingly ignoring the massive injury and striking nihilism of war.”