It looks so simple: Buy a ton of junk at low prices. Put it online with product titles like “miracle therapy device” and at extortionate prices. Wait until the blinking “Sell” box is replaced by a red “Sold out” label. Start over.
Small tip: Get yourself a weapon to be on the safe side or hire a Yakuza assistant, because as you can clearly learn in the new thriller Cloud, negative customer reviews quickly escalate into a home invasion thrillerThe man behind it is Japanese master director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who presented his new thriller at the Venice Film Festival.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa has perfected internet horror
The seller is called Ryosuke (Masaki Suda), a quiet guy who only vibrates with excitement when he stares at his screen. In his small apartment filled with boxes, this is the shining shrine. Ryosuke has a boring job and earns a little extra money as a reseller. The faster the “sold out” boxes appear, the faster he lets go of his concerns when selecting products. Fake handbags, merchandise… It doesn’t matter what he sells, as long as the profit margin is right. The Internet takes care of the rest.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa has already explored in his career how much horror can be found on the World Wide Web. The scariest thing happened in his masterpiece Pulsewhich was given a well-deserved first place by the Moviepilot editorial team in the list of the best horror films of the 2000s. In Pulse, too, young people stare at their screens until ghostly apparitions look back and penetrate the world of the living through the window of the Internet.
The horror film avoids explicit violence. Pulse draws its horror images and atmosphere from everyday spaces and places. The Internet is presented here as a place of refuge that isolates people from each other – and themselves – until there is nothing left of them.
The ghosts of the Internet are also making their way into the cloud. the disinhibition from anonymous online shops and comment columns spills over into real life One day, Ryosuke is riding home on his moped and just manages to escape a wire that has been strung across his path. It seems like an unfortunate coincidence, but a feeling of unease hangs in the air from then on. When unpleasant incidents start to pile up, he rents a remote house in the woods. He continues to operate his online business, and on a larger scale than ever.
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Cloud is a mix of home invasion horror and action film
The first half of Cloud is dominated by horror. Its level can’t keep up with Pulse or Cure, but that is compensated for by the observation of a fairly contemporary existence. Ryosuke is both perpetrator and victim. As a salesman, he exploits others for his own greed, while his conscience continues to crumble with each transaction. At the same time, he is presented as a product of a consumer world in which work no longer creates meaning – only a transfer at the beginning of the month. The emptiness is filled with the next flashing “Sold out” sign. The growing account balance is not enjoyed either, but rather reinvested directly.
The only thing more sinister than the masked men who appear in front of Ryosuke’s window is the sales tool he stares at for hours. It is so simple, so impersonal, so seductive and Kiyoshi Kurosawa observes it with a curiosity that other directors have for dinosaurs, UFOs or chainsaw-wielding hillbillies.
But when the masked men appear in the forest, A real hard action film breaks out of Cloudwhich one is not necessarily used to from Kurosawa. Then there is shooting and bullets whizz through the industrial ruins of days gone by. The mood of the first half is rigorously broken. In its place comes an escalation of violence that could be called satirical – were it not so deadly serious.
Cloud does not yet have a German release date. The film will be shown out of competition in Venice.