Review by
Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Adolfo Kolmerer, William James
Starring: Reza Brojerdi, Erkan Acar, Xenia Assenza, David
Masterson, Alexander Schubert
Scene: A dubious kebab shop, wherein a couple of young men, who are perhaps
best described as ‘a bit shady’, are passionately discussing the ideal
composition of a Doner. They bang on about sauce to meat ratios, and the
acceptable inclusion of salad, before -PLOT TWIST! - the camera pans to
reveal the other customers of the eatery, who have all been shot to death by
the kebabsessed duo! Déjà vu alert: they’re a pair of hitmen who
nonchalantly chat about fast food etiquette. Thus begins
Adolfo J. Kolmerer and William James' pulp thriller
Snowflake, in which a quartet of criminally inclined narratives play out and
eventually converge in a meta-melee of violence (sound familiar?), as the
two hitmen set out to hunt down the killers of their family.
Despite the over-familiarity of the opening (and the plot in general),
there is a concession towards originality when the pair of hitmen happen
upon a script. This screenplay seems to entail the actual narrative events
which the two lads are experiencing, right down to the surprised dialogue
which comes out of their mouths when they actually work out what is going
on: words that are scripted upon the pages which they hold and which they
are powerless not to relate. Yikes! This Borges-ian meta twist abides within
Snowflake’s milieus of surreal dystopias and cyberpunk stylings. The film features
existential Scotsmen who pack heat and who also just may be God and His Holy
Son; a couple of Polish cannibals; some superhero mush who feeds on
electricity. You get the picture…
The reflexive, mind bending practises of Snowflake make it
the sort of film that would be cute and clever as a short, but which is
ultimately, at two hours, rather patience stretching. Chapter headings
(hmmm…) split the narrative up, and during one episode we are introduced to
the titular Snowflake, an angel replete with big white feathery wings, who
proceeds to navigate the kebab-lads through the underworld of Berlin (which,
pleasingly, is reminiscent of a subculture Cabaret). The problem is though, with the primacy of its central conceit, the
overriding concept of characters becoming aware of their fictionality and
confronting their maker (a hobbying dentist who is just writing a screenplay
for shits and giggles: Dada, man), Snowflake is rendered all a
bit arch, and sadly nowhere near as clever as it hopes we think it is.
As the film progresses, its themes, with a weary sense of inevitability,
calcify into Big Questions about our own existence and our relation to the
God which made us. There is a Big-Bad hitman who quotes Bible verse before
executing characters (sure I’ve seen that before), and, in a moment of
juvenile blasphemy, Snowflake, a hegemonically attractive woman, willingly
fellates a gun before being shot to gruesome death in the face. Look, if you
are going to have a bit of a pop at the Christian church, at least get your
facts right: there are no such thing as female angels. They’re all fellas!
(if only the film-makers had studied the Scriptures with the same fealty
with which they mined crime portmanteaus from 1994, amirite?). In a climate
where the most insistent discussions concerning cinema seem to be what
infinity stone Dr. Strange will use to right the Marvel universe, it seems
churlish to use a film’s initiative against it, but Snowflake’s flurry of ideas too often creates a narrative blur, and the film melts
before it even has a chance to settle.
Snowflake is on Amazon Prime Video
UK now.