If ever I were to describe a film as harrowing it would be this one. Excruciating throughout, Alexandra's Project is the cinematic equivalent of being on the verge of a panic attack. The first half of the film had me wound up tauter than I've been in a long while. Both lead actors give phenomenal performances, a husband and wife pair whose relationship hides an almost unfathomable darkness in its domestic ennui, manifesting itself in the most sadistic possible way. It falls apart a bit towards the end, but that doesn't really detract from the blistering emotional trauma we bear witness to; no memory is left unmaimed, no scrap of happiness is allowed to survive. I think part of the reason I found the film so affecting is that I knew nothing about it going into it, the first half of the film remains just ambiguous enough that you aren't really sure what's going on before you're dunked headfirst into a very, very deep pool of cruelty.
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