The Passion Of Darkly Noon (1995) ***1/2

The Passion Of Darkly Noon (1995) is the second of only three feature films from author/playwright/poet/painter/director/etc. Philip Ridley. Arriving five years after his stunning debut The Reflecting Skin (my review here), Darkly Noon is another surrealist drama with hints of horror with a lot to appreciate and much to contemplate.

Brandon Fraser is the titular character, named after a Bible passage from Corinthians (the same one that Ingmar Bergman's 1961 film Through A Glass Darkly (my review here) took its title from). Having escaped an attack on the conservative Christian cult that he belonged to wherein his parents were killed, the childlike Darkly wanders confused and exhausted through the forest. Coffin transporter Jude (Loren Dean) brings Darkly to his friend Callie (Ashley Judd) who nurses Darkly back to health. Callie lives a seemingly idilic life in a big house in the forest with her mute coffin-making boyfriend Clay (Viggo Mortensen), but as Darkly becomes increasingly obsessed with Callie's beauty and kindness, we find that the couple have their own Dark past.

Ridley revisits many themes from his debut feature, just one example being a striking central blonde female figure wrongly perceived to be a monster—in the case of TPODN, Ashley Judd as witch, and in the case of The Reflecting Skin, Lindsay Duncan as vampire. Not all the artistic choices work for me—the extreme color grading works in some scenes, but feels a bit like overkill in others. But I appreciate that Ridley is relentless in his painterly approach (I said it in my review of TRS and it holds true here as well that Ridley's background as a painter and visual artist very much informs his films). 

Nick Bicât (who also scored Ridley's first film) provides a moody score with a simple, yet elegant theme (which is also used in the beautifully sung, Bicât-penned PJ Harvey song "Who Will Love Me Now" that plays over the credits). Bicât's music here is largely electronic based but there is an organicness to it that, along with the visuals, provides a dream-like, fairy tale quality, strengthened in particular by the woodland setting. 

As was even more the case in his debut, there are hints of David Lynch in TPODN and the more surrealist touches (the iconic floating shoe of course) call to mind Alejandro Jodorowsky (tonally I was reminded of Santa Sangre (1989) (my review here) at times). Brian De Palma appears to have been an influence as well, as both that director's Carrie (1976) (my review here) and Darkly Noon contain vengeful, incendiary finales (there's also one very De Palma-like split diopter shot).

The Passion Of Darkly Noon is one of those films where the star rating I give it is less important the impression it left on me. A tale of religion gone awry, sexual repression, and monsters both real and perceived, the film's exaggerated—almost European—drama and presentation will likely come off as humorous to many American audience members, but for those who appreciate bold visual stylists, Darkly Noon is a unique treat. Thanks to purveyors of quality Arrow Video, this cult film has been properly preserved on Blu-ray with an excellent transfer for cinema lovers to geek out over.