Under The Raven’s Wing
Review by the Fiend of Grue
Under The Raven’s Wing is about an unseen filmmaker that documents three young women who recently committed a murder. Raven (Kimberly Amato) is the ringleader of the group who teaches her two minions Angel (Kamilla Sofie Sadekova) and Jessie (Jessica Palette) about serene realms and other dimensions that lie beyond this world. She believes that the three of them, under her guidance, have the power to send people to these realms, but to be sent there you have to be killed. To the girls though, it isn’t murder, but rather a “transcendence” as they call it and to their warped minds, it is not death but rather the greatest gift you can give to someone. To spread their philosophy, the girls figure that the Director (Coy DeLuca) is the perfect person for the job.
As this documentary is being shot and their story unfolds before our eyes, the girls open up more about what drives them with Raven trying to control every aspect of the documentary. Eventually her power trip on all involved explodes over into a plan of suicide that finds the Director fearing for his own life.
The real director of Under The Raven‘s Wing, Susan Adriensen, was smart for filming the movie in a documentary style because the execution plays well. The movie authentically feels like a documentary that shows us inside the minds of sadly mislead young women on their path to self destruction. Throughout the film, the interaction between the girls is very believable. The three of them come off as friends that are bound by an unbreakable pact that Raven controls. Except for maybe a few small scenes, one of which involves a confrontation between Raven and Jessie “off camera” that is laughable although it isn‘t meant to be, the actions between the girls seem real enough.
The movie is certainly a character driven piece with Raven being at the forefront. Kimberly Amato is a fairly decent actress that does well for the most part, but some of the scenes where she is supposed to show intense emotion just don’t work well at all, especially when she is angry. At times, the way she plays it comes off as very amateurish and terribly overacted in expression. Susan Adrriensen failed to capitalize on Kimberly’s greater strength of subtlety. It is during the quieter moments of conversation and dialogue when Kimberly is at her best in this movie. Kamilla Sofie Sadekova and Jessica Palette as the faithful followers pull off their parts well enough also, always ready to do whatever Raven tells them to do, which eventually leads them into deadly peril.
Under The Raven’s Wing is more of a dark, occult tinged drama than a horror film. These mislead girls feel that they are doing what is right on one hand, but their rational side tells them otherwise. Although there are scenes of dialogue that go on and on where the girls talk about transcendence and all of the five different levels that it consists of, by the end of the movie nothing much has clearly be explained about what it really is. Their philosophy is also left in the clouds, never fully being revealed to where in the end you have more questions than you do answers to what you have just seen.
Despite the many flaws of the film, it is a unique and interesting take on a faux documentary. The camera work is done very well, in which was shot entirely by Susan Adriensen herself. The movie is shot to be like the “director” was making all of the shots, when in fact it was Susan at the helm with Coy DeLuca doing his lines right out of the camera’s way. “I had to feel the vibes coming from the actor who stood or sat behind me during the shooting,” Adriensen stated. “I moved the camera along with his vocal inflections. As I worked the camera, and even as I edited the movie, I had to think like a horny, early-20’s male”
Ambitious is a word I would use to describe this film and with a little more experience and a slightly shorter film (it did tend to drag and felt painfully long at times during it’s 1 hour 40 minute running time) this could have been really good. I wouldn’t recommend tripping over yourself to try to hunt down a copy of Under The Raven’s Wing, but I also wouldn’t say completely avoid it either.
Under The Raven’s Wing - Official Website
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