Chaos

This would be an excellent film, if it was film. Sadly, it’s a video. I realize this shouldn’t ruin the experience for me, but it quite nearly does, as video doesn’t seem to produce the distancing and suspension of disbelief that film does. I think it’s because we’re so used to seeing video for news programs and other "real life" things, whereas film always spells fantasy. Other than the medium problem, though, Chaos is so cool that it’s actually French. Helene and Paul, a couple of unpleasantly bourgeois Parisians, witness a horrible crime but do nothing to help. Racked with guilt, Helene befriends the comatose victim, a beautiful Algerian prostitute who slowly recovers her sense and plunges Helene into an exciting world so far beyond the realm of her business and family life that the fear and violence and deceit become marks of liberation. Fun, fast paced, and well-plotted, Chaos is everything a film should be, except for being a film.