Elizabeth Harvest (4 Stars)

This is the 23rd film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

I sat through the first half of this film feeling confused, not knowing what was going on. Everything was wrapped up neatly at the end, but my overall impression is that "Elizabeth Harvest" is a film that needs to be watched twice to be fully enjoyed. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of your personal taste.

The film begins with a young woman called Elizabeth being taken home by a rich man, Henry, after their wedding. It's the first time she's been in his house. The only other occupants are his maid Claire and her blind son Oliver. He leads her from room to room, showing her his treasures, art paintings and jewels. She discovers that he won a Nobel Prize a few years ago. In the cellar they walk past a brightly lit room. Elizabeth asks Henry what's in it, to which he replies that the whole house is hers, but that one room is off limits.

You're probably thinking the same as me. Forbidding entry to just one room in the house makes it the most interesting room of all. That's the same story as in the Garden of Eden. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat the fruit of any tree except for one, so guess which fruit they ate first. That's human nature. Elizabeth sneaked into the room as soon as Henry was away on business. The night before Henry had enigmatically told her, "Every action is defined by its consequences". It doesn't matter what she found, what's important is the way Henry reacted to her curiosity. God punished Adam and Eve by throwing them out of the Garden of Eden. Henry doesn't throw Elizabeth out of his house, he hacks her to death with a machete. Claire and Oliver help Henry bury Elizabeth in the garden as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

So the title character's dead? This was the first moment of shock for me in the film. Others followed fast.

Next we see a young woman called Elizabeth being taken home by a rich man, Henry, after their wedding. It's the same Elizabeth. The dialogue as Henry escorts her through the house is almost the same. Is this a flashback? Is this an alternative reality like in "Run Lola Run"? As the film continued I slowly figured out the answers, and I was astounded.

This is a very good film, even though I don't like the over-reliance on flashbacks in the second half. I'm looking forward to seeing it a second time.