A NEW film that takes the 2004 tsunami disaster in Asia as its inspiration and starting point has been one of the early talking points of the 65th Venice Film Festival.

Vinyan, by Belgian director Fabrice du Welz, stars Emmanuelle Beart and Rufus Sewell as Jeannne and Paul Belhmer, a couple who have been unable to accept the loss of their son in the devastating tsunami largely because his body was never recovered.

Jeanne is convinced that the boy was kidnapped by traffickers in the chaos that followed the catastrophe – and that he is still alive, but Paul is more sceptical.

They both subsequently embark on a trip by boat to the pirate infested jungles of the Thai/Burmese border, and quickly become plunged into a nightmarish situation that involves paranoia, betrayal and a supernatural realm where the dead are never truly dead and where nightmares, obsession and horrifying reality converge.

The Venice Film Festival website describes du Welz’s film as an “extraordinary and overwhelming apocalyptic ghost story” that focuses on a mother who is unable to accept the death of her son and who “journeys into the heart of darkness, plunging head first into obsession and unthinkable horrors as she confronts her own madness, and something far worse in a stormtorn jungle, alive with the spirit of the dead”.

Both du Welz and Beart attended the film festival and were questioned about the merits of basing a film around the events of the Asian tsunami.

But du Welz defended the decision, saying: “For me, the tsunami was a starting point and I never asked if it was a good or a bad thing.

“My story is about a couple who have lost a child. I tried to deal with their sorrow with a certain distance and respect, without being melodramatic.”

Beart added that the film was a way of tackling death, which is perceived as taboo by a lot of Western audiences.

She told the BBC: “For people in the West, death is a taboo – it’s fearful and dizzying. In Thailand, there’s this idea that death is continuative. They believe certain souls have to be released because they’re stuck between two levels. We, the living, are holding them back.”

Vinyan is playing out of competition at the festival but has yet to find a distributor for a UK release. If (or when) it does so, it should be among the more interesting films coming our way over the coming months…

• Delicious
• Digg
• Reddit
• Facebook
• Stumbleupon