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For her birthday, Amethyst (Grace Klich) receives a vial containing
some liquid or other from her sister Ember (Valerie Miller) and hastily
downs it all ... before she reads the PS on her birthday card that tells
her to only take one drop at a time as the vial contains LSD - well, it's
too late now and Amethyst starts tripping while wandering off into the
countryside. Upon finding the empty vial (and coming to the right
conclusion), Ember follows her and manages to catch up - but eventually,
Amethyst thinks Ember has become a monster and drowns her and letting her
drag into some fantasy world more and more by some pied piper kind of guy
(Derrick Biedenback), where she stumbles upon all kinds of weird
characters, passing through all kinds of weird landscapes, and ultimately
seeing herself forced (by her own drug-addled imagination as it is) to
scale an obelisk that might be her portal home ... Not only
because Amethyst was filmed with no dialogue or even on-screen
sound, and not only because it makes abundant use of odd and unnatural
colour grading, this is a rather weird movie. Now basically, Amethyst
was conceived as the representation of an LSD trip ... and indeed,
triplike is quite possibly the first word that srings into one's mind when
watching it - but it is so in the best possible way, as it doesn't hinge
on sensationalism and spectacle but tells a very dreamlike (and thus
logic-free) story in a very dreamlike (as in unreal, surreal, absurd, ...)
way, with some great locations, fluid camerawork and above-mentioned
colour grading adding to the effect. And that the actors all play it
relatively straight considering the concept really helps as well. As
mentioned, it's trip-like, but it's also quite unique, and definitely
worth a look!
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