The Unknown is a frustrating Cannes oddity that has the ambitions of an arthouse film but plays out like a long, drawn-out love letter to Eurotrash and exploitation cinema of the 70s.
It takes a familiar concept – the body swap trope – and runs it into the ground with glacial pacing and underwritten characters that do nothing with the hefty themes it toys with. In fleeting moments, like an audacious bit of gender dysphoria that belongs in a far better movie, The Unknown flirts with something intriguing. But it loses all weight and bite because of its adamant pursuit of an imitated style that repels rather than captivates.
David (Niel Schneider), a self-proclaimed photographer who actively keeps his friends at a distance, looks and behaves like a creep. Right from the start, it's difficult to care about him, which feels like the only truly intentional aspect of The Unknown. Both of its characters are difficult and off-putting people who still deserve a shot at happiness. One night, David attends a party, where he follows a mysterious woman, Eva (Léa Seydoux), into a backroom, has sex with her, and awakens the next morning in her body.
From there, The Unknown unfolds first as a horror film, then a slow-burning supernatural thriller similar to It Follows, and finally a mawdling erotic drama. In a better-written, or at least better-paced film, The Unknown would not need so many genre-swaps. But because it overstays its welcome by a full hour, The Unknown glacially trudges from one understated discovery to the next without peaks, valleys, or anything resembling forward motion.
When the credits rolled, I was unsurprised to see that The Unknown has three credited writers. It feels like the product of competing visions, each attempting its hand at a different style or theme, and none of them communicating with each other. At one point, David/Eva actually Googles their predicament, and it's about as close to anything exciting the film offers.
The monotone stylings stretch from performances to music, which is a repetitive, atonal assault on the senses. The same piano refrain plays over and over throughout the nearly two-and-a-half-hour film, as if daring viewers to sit through yet another unpleasant moment with characters nobody seems to like.
In better hands, The Unknown could have been a fascinating exploration of personal identity, sexuality, and harsh truths about who we are as people. At some points, The Unknown accidentally stumbles onto these notions, then quickly disregards them, as if terrified that it would hit upon something profound.
What's worse is that I have difficulty pinpointing what kind of film director Arthur Harari is going for. At the press conference, he actively sidestepped any suggestions that this was a trans-allegory and remained elusive on almost everything else as well. Seydoux, a tremendous actor in the right hands, can't find her performance as Eva, who is also David. Both of the main characters are depressed and closed off. When they switch places, neither shows any signs of changing.
Add to that the intentionally murky visuals, which emphasize slow zooms and rhythmless scenes, and The Unknown becomes a test of patience for even the most devoted of genre fans. It reminded me of Hollywood 90028, an equally unforgiving story of outcasts that broke genre barriers. But unlike Christina Hornisher's bleak tragedy, The Unknown refuses to engage with its material beyond superficial stylings. It wants the look and feel of an Antonioni picture, and everything else is perfunctory.
It's a film where the outcome is clear after the first twenty minutes, and the following two hours offer nothing that would reveal something new or intriguing about either the film or ourselves. Instead, like the filmmakers, it steers away from any meaningful conversation because that would reveal just how empty the glossy packaging is on the inside.
