In Fabric

A timeless clothing store as a colorful temple of human needs and weaknesses, inhabited by a gothic vampire, a bizarre servant and a few courtesans. In Fabric is a mysterious trip into the realm of human fetishes and internal anxiety with attractive giallo optics. The first half is intriguing and stimulates the viewer’s curiosity. The second half, which turns the page and observes other victims, is interesting only at the beginning, before it begins to connect with the common evil. Then the film starts to become boring by reminding us of the situations from the first half, without escalating in any meaningful way. And the drive of the almost hypnotic narrative is thus ruined. It was as if Strickland didn’t know how to finish the story that he so wonderfully set in motion. The best thing would be to develop this into a series where in each episode the murderous dress would visit another household. The creator could thus try his hand at dozens of bizarre constellations of characters and their intimate activities “behind closed doors”. (13/09/2019)

Fashion hell done a little differently. What makes In Fabric an exclusive film is also its biggest weakness. Events do not develop, but rather repeat with the regularity of rituals (which surrealists love so much). Sheila returns to the department store, whose staff try to charm her with baroquely elaborate phrases. She goes on dates via ads. She learns details of her son’s love live. Again and again, without anything going anywhere or so that we better learn the past of dresses that cause washing machines to commit suicide or, as the case may be, we understand the bizarre laws of this fictional world, which gives the impression of being simultaneously modern and archaic. Thanks to tactile imaging of surfaces, clever work with colours and the use of avant-garde stylistic elements (e.g. overlapping shots during a love scene, when not only bodies but also layers of the image intertwine), it is seductive and intoxicating, but that is not enough for a feature-length film. Therefore, at the midpoint of the film, an unexpected change occurs, followed by a variation not of a particular situation, but of the whole first hour of the story (stylistically reminiscent of British social dramas rather than giallo films). Instead of strengthening the atmosphere, the film turns to disintegrates. It loses its momentum and cohesion, and is no longer able to say much of anything new about the central theme of capitalistic fetishisation of merchandise, to which we attribute magical properties under the influence of marketing. Throughout its runtime, In Fabric is a very stylish, likably exaggerated affair that is difficult to compare to anything else in contemporary art cinema, but next time I would prefer to see one excellent film than two passable stories. 70% (17/07/2019)

A formally pampered bizarre thing, with a flavourless and empty plot. I had fun, especially with the scenes in the hellish shopping mall, but, when a film is weird, like this one is, I prefer it to have something more tangible, a clear author’s intention. This one, however, was pretty random. #KVIFF2019 (02/07/2019)

Peter Strickland isn't a director I seek out and I wasn't too impressed with his much lauded In Fabric. It should definitely be noted that the director has an eye for detail and the references to Italian Giallo work well, but that's where it ends for me. It’s an uninteresting film focusing on a critique of consumerism and the fashion world, with a strange narrative, minimal horror elements, lots of bizarre scenes that don't actually make much sense, and I didn't find the supposed humour funny at all. It's a film so weird that you either like it or don't care about it, like I did. I wasn't entertained and the only thing that caught my attention was the washing machine scene. 40% (02/09/2019)

This is such a beautifully bizarre movie. I enjoy watching scenes from the peculiar world of Peter Strickland, and I certainly have nothing against the movie’s almost two-hour length, but the division into the two different sections didn't sit with me very well, and this has quite diminished an otherwise engaging experience. Overall, however, it was quite satisfactory, and I am persuaded to watch Strickland's other phantasmagorias. (19/01/2020)

Artistic junk, but still junk. Despite several remarkable ideas, this visually enchanting tribute to B horror movies from the eighties about murderous objects and Italian giallo gore films drags incredibly in places (two hours is really too much for this type of film, and about 80 minutes, give or take, would have been far more feasible). Overall, because of the trivial story, on which other random motifs that lead nowhere are based, this is mainly a video-art retro show of bizarre scenes and moments that are so crazy and messed up in places that you can’t help but laugh at them (or at least shake your head, giggle and wonder what was going through Peter Strickland's head and what drugs he was on when he came up with this). (04/07/2019)