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Review

Deeply, profoundly unsettling doesn't even begin to describe Bullet Collector. The debut feature from director Alexander Vartanov, it follows a deeply disturbed young teen as he he bounces back and forth from the violent fantasies of his mind to the bleak and often violent reality of his everyday existence. The liner notes compare this very disturbing, starkly filmed vision to The 400 Blows, but a more apt comparison would be something along the lines of Zero for Conduct meets Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer. In other words, youth rebellion meets profound psychosis.

While he occasionally falls prey to rookie mistakes with pacing (the very end of the film is especially dragged out), Vartanov displays an almost shocking level of confidence as a filmmaker. He alternates between slower, contemplative scenes and rapid fire editing. He bounces back and forth between a melodic, almost classical sounding score to eerie, abstract horror movie sounds. This leaves viewers, most likely already on edge from the graphic imagery, almost dizzyingly off-balance. Most of the scenes of violence will provoke nothing but the desire to run and hide, but some, particularly when vengeance is being excruciatingly doled out to a bully, will have viewers cheering the horror on. Mostly, I wanted to curl up in the fetal position throughout the film, but there were moments when I shouted at the screen, "Yeah, kill him!"

While Bullet Collector is a profoundly affecting experience to watch, it is only recommended for fans with a high tolerance for very disturbing content. Those who can sit through all of the beatings and stabbings (all of them involving young teens) and the very creepy sex scene between the anti-hero and his 14-year-old girlfriend (no nudity is actually shown, but it is more than a little unsettling regardless), will find themselves rewarded with the rarest of cinematic experiences: a film that provokes very strong emotional reactions and lingers, hauntingly, in the mind.

 -- Stone Davis