Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

Camille

(2007)

This one went direct to DVD. It got off to an extremely rocky start for me, as this white trash couple got married. He’s so ambivalent that he can only choke out a “Yes” at the altar. She’s so oblivious, so blindly in love, that she can’t see this as a bad sign. He spends the first few hours of their honeymoon (on a motorcycle with a sidecar) bitching at her because she won’t shut up, even for a minute. So I despise him. Trouble is, she won’t freakin’ shut up, and I almost felt sympathy for the asshole husband. She is a super-annoying perkster, seemingly impervious to disappointment. She is so impervious, in fact, that when they are in a bad accident and she is killed … she won’t freakin’ lie down! He soon understands that she is, in fact, dead, but somehow still walking around. Clue: she is starting to smell bad. Another clue: she doesn’t feel it when a cop shoots her through the shoulder. They “solve” the aroma problem by bathing her in formaldehyde … which, I would think, would simply substitute one foul odor for another, but never mind. The issue of tissue decay is not addressed; no chunks of flesh fall off her, though she does carelessly lose part of a finger. I understand that this is in some way allegorical, that it is supposed to be saying something about undying love, and the asshole husband learns to love her only after she is dead … but it all just fails to come together.