Territories-DVD Review

Hello Folks,
Well i got to see the excellent i must say new film Territories from Raphael Rocher the producer of french zombie flick La Horde.
The story starts off with 5 young people travel at night on their way back from a wedding, we get to see they have a broken headlight and then we see lights up ahead, they are signalled to stop and this is where we meet the 2 self proclaimed border guards, on pulling them over the 1st guard asks for Passports, walks off then returns and gives the passport back, alls ok it would seem until he asks how the headlight was broken and the driver goes on to explain how they hit a deer "Roe or Buck" the guard asks to which the driver is clearly unsure and just makes it up much to the annoyance of this clearly psychotic guard, he then asks for all their passports and asks them all to step out of the vehicle, what ensues is a crazy one sided argument by the 2 border patrols which results in a girl being handcuffed to a tree, her brother who is mute nearly dying because he can't get his asthma inhaler, one of the guards attempting to kill their dog and one of the group getting shot and it does not let up from there on inwards.

The next thing we see is them all stripped down and bags placed on their heads and dressed in Guantanamo style orange boiler suits being transported in cages to an undisclosed location.
The next morning a sheriff arrives at the guys house and questions them if the have seen or know anything about the missing 5 youngsters to which clearly they feed him a cock'n'bull story and he leaves.
We then see the 4 remaining survivors in the cages and the Young mute guy managers to pull himself free for the handcuffs with his sister clearly warning him "Do not do anything".
Nighttime arrives and they are taking from the cages and led to a large shed where the mute guy before entering smashes one of the guys in the head with a rock and attempts to make a run for it  but they have the good old Alsatian dog and obviously he doesn't make it far!

The next scene is harsh to say the least, all 4 stripped naked sat against a wall with strobe lights flashing in their faces whilst extremely loud drum and bass music is blasted at them, it even made me wince!!
So on the scene arrives a private detective on the trail of the youngsters, questions the 2 guards but gets nowhere and has his obvious suspicions, he asks to use the toilet and is shown it's whereabouts and whilst walking notice photographs of them both in the Iraq war and a photograph of the main guy smiling inside the gates of the now notorious Guantanamo bay.

So you get the basic idea of the film, it's very politically heavy with the attitudes and paranoia of any one strange entering the so called territories, an example is the main guy who was driving the car is Asian looking and the guards are convinced he is out as a terrorist, lots of social commentary, lots of paranoia, violence and visions of how the torture allegedly transpired, well worth a viewing, in particular there is a girl who has an abscess on her tooth and i don't know if the actress really did but the make up is very impressive and watch out for how they get rid of it, you will look away!!!

will they escape? will the reporter find them? i must say the ending for me at least was quite a surprise.
7.5/10
Jonny T.

 

Territories is out now on DVD from Arrow Films.