The 2020 French film, Meandre, opens with a woman named Lisa (Gaia Weiss) lying in the middle of the road, as if specifically begging someone to drive up and run her over.
When a man named Adam (Peter Franzen) approaches in his car, Lisa makes a last minute decision to get out of the car’s way. Adam stops the car and offers Lisa a lift to wherever she wants to go. Lisa accepts his offer and, as they drive through the night, Lisa reveals that today would have been the ninth birthday of her daughter, Nina. Adam, who has a cross tattooed on his wrist, appears to be sympathetic. However, then a report comes over the radio about a serial killer who is murdering hitchhikers and who has a cross tattooed on his wrist. Realizing that Lisa now knows that he’s a murderer, Adam slams down on the brakes and throws Lisa against the dashboard, knocking her out.
When Lisa wakes up …. well, Adam is nowhere to be seen. In fact, neither is the car. Now wearing a white, skin-tight uniform, Lisa is in a small room. She has a device on her wrist. She has no idea where she is or how she got there. She appears to be a prisoner but she doesn’t know why or who is holding her in captivity. Suddenly, a door slides open, revealing a narrow tunnel.
Lisa spends the majority of the movie crawling from one location to another. It’s never made quite clear just where exactly she is but it’s a place that’s full of tunnels, bobby traps, and the occasional rotting corpse. Whenever the device on her wrist starts to beep, the viewer knows that something bad is about to happen to Lisa and she’s going to have to either avoid fire or sharp blades or being crushed as the walls of the tunnel suddenly come together. Eventually, she also has to deal with a bizarre creature that chases her through the tunnels. Through it all, she thinks that she can hear the voice of her daughter….
For me, Meandre got off to a good start by featuring a main character named Lisa. Seriously, with a movie like this, it’s very important to be able to relate to the main character and, as soon as I found out that she shared my first name, I was totally on Lisa’s side. That said, Gaia Weiss gives such a strong performance that even people who are not named Lisa will be rooting for the character. The viewer sincerely wants Lisa to not only survive the traps but also discover why and where she is being held prisoner. Meanwhile, Peter Franzen gives an appropriately intimidating performance as Adam (who does make a return appearance to the film after the incident in the car), alternating between being friendly and murderous.
I was not a huge fan of the film’s ending, which felt a bit too obscure and new agey for its own good. But, ending aside, Meandre is an effective and claustrophobic horror film, featuring an excellent lead performance from Gaia Weiss.
Through the Shattered Lens 