Second warning: Lost Souls is best seen alone, in the dark. I, unfortunately, saw it with a friend. She kept interrupting, asking questions, making comments. Lost Souls has atmosphere, pace, rhythm. A bright room with loud viewers will dampen its impact. And although it has an extremely well-structured script (I saw some things coming, which is not bad), it's not a simple script. If you don't pay attention, you'll soon find the succession of events confusing.
About its atmosphere. The controversy over Lost Souls pertains less to its story than to its style, which threatens (but does not) overwhelm the story. Although Lost Souls is Kaminksi's directorial debut, he's long been a leading cinematographer (his credits include any number of Spielberg films, including Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List).
Some critics contend that Kaminksi has gone overboard in displaying his visual tricks. The film has the look of a TV commercial. White flashes punctuated by thunder, movements jarringly sped up (as though shot on video and transferred to film), a sepia-saturated world of grays, browns, and golds. A world simultaneously bright yet murky. Cold and pale. The metallic look of The Matrix, or a Wired magazine ad, or a dotcom commercial.
Here's an example of Lost Souls's hyper-stylization:
Early in the film, three priests (one, the elderly John Hurt) and Maya enter an asylum to perform an exorcism. They stride single file, slow-motion, their long steps exaggerated with a wide-angle lens, their loose clothes billowing (reminiscent of The Matrix's trenchcoats), their feet thundering with every step. Appearing as four futuristic tough-guys approaching a duel; yet this curious mise-en-scene is here applied to three physically unimpressive priests, and one slight, frazzled woman.
This contrast between style and content risks satire; yet Kaminski intends no satire, and to his credit, we're not laughing.
Equally visually stunning is a late scene, shot in telephoto: an SUV driving under a bridge, under the fiery semicircular rings of ... some sort of Men-At-Work light fixtures, a looming electronic sign reading: No Access.
Do these stylistics serve an aesthetic purpose? One can find one. Kaminski's dark, somber cinematography creates the impression of a world under a cloud (it's often raining), of an impending doom descending on humanity. The characters' jarring motions adumbrate the metaphysical and ethical disintegrations inherent in Armageddon. The thundering footsteps shot in slow motion emphasize the import of the impending confrontation. And of course, the impressive stylistics and special effects build to provide that much more contrast with the unexpectedly "small" ending.
So yes, one can aesthetically justify Kaminski's stylistics. But one is also tempted to wonder: Are these justifications the real reason for his stylistics, or did Kaminski apply them simply because they looked cool? Certainly, the film's detractors think so.
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