Link: Black Death

Summary: Amid the dangerous outbreak of the bubonic plague, a young monk joins a group of fighters out to investigate a mysterious village, where people claim the dead are being brought back to life.

Thoughts: A rather bleak film.  I enjoyed the look and feel of it, though there was far too much employment of the infamous shaky cam.  The premise itself wasn’t bad, but the overall film was little more than a direct dramatization of the premise.  That is, the film feels like a short film that’s been artificially bloated to a full film.  Most of the conflicts are episodic and don’t seem to relate much to each other, save for the fact that the same characters are engaged in them.  I could not grasp any sort of theme or emotional subtext that could’ve held the film together.  What is the hero’s main emotional conflict?  I couldn’t detect one; all his conflicts were outward and physical in some manner.  By the film’s end, the whole thing just feels bland and empty.