"technical skills not just for show"

Rating: 8/10 (9 May 2002)

This convincing movie is a proof that sublime and ridicule are just a step away. The sort of mixed technique used here (blown-up details, split-screens, drawings mixed with live action and all the usual director-cinematographer believing in his visual genius somersets) works beautifully not to show one's gifted, but to tell the story. And the story works, and the fictional (?) explanation of Jack's killings is convincing and somehow amusing. I gather the whole thing derives from a comic strip: it must be a first class strip, and its peculiar way of looking at the world (with a penchant for the gutter), of sketching, cutting and editing it is transferred on the big screen with gusto.