Ink

Ink is a 2009 science-fiction/fantasy film by unknown writer/director Jamin Winans produced for a minuscule budget of $250,000 and starring a cast of actors nobody has ever heard of.  The story revolves around two factions in the spirit world: the Storytellers, guardian angels that give good dreams, and the Incubus, corrupting demons that give nightmares.  A rogue spirit named Ink steals the soul of a little girl, Emma, to present to the Lord of the Incubus as payment to become an Incubus himself; in the human world Emma falls into a coma.  A small group of Storytellers, including Emma's guardian angel Allel, must fight to reunite her and her estranged father who is a vicious stock trader.

Ink is what modern moviegoers would consider an independent film, technically it isn't because it was produced by Double Edge Films, but with it's meager budget, unknown cast, and art house charm it definitely fits the bill of an independent film.  Ink was made with a very low quality camera and looks fuzzy and washed-out most of the time, despite that Ink manages to be incredibly beautiful and uses the faded colors to it's advantage.  The lower quality images add to the surreal feeling of the spirit world; the movie feels as if the spirit world and the human world exist on the same plane with merely a sheet of separating them.  As such the main characters see the human world as faded and gray and they can't interact with it because it's in a different plane of existence.

Many of the sets and props were also made out of ordinary objects.  The lair of the Incubus is lined with garbage bags, hung up in squares, and even the sacrificial chamber for Emma is just a bath tub sitting in the middle of a concrete room.  The CGI is also very cheap, but used perfectly to create villains and worlds that fall well within the uncanny valley and make the Incubus, truly, the stuff of nightmares.  The Incubus wear sheets of glass suspended in front of their faces which distorts their features and filters out all of the color; they also wear green rubber aprons, like a serial killer, and the way they're presented is unsettling and demonic.  The storytellers are the exact opposite: they wear clothes from different time periods (whichever time period they died) and have no distortion, however they are noticeably brighter when compared to other things in the human world which gives them a warm, welcoming appearance while still maintaining the fierce looks of the warriors they're presented as.

If Jamin Winans has one Achilles Heel, it would be his conversational dialogue.  When two people talk in this movie about something that isn't directly related to the plot they sound very awkward and stiff.  This is particularly noticeable in the opening scene which depicts Emma and her father playing near some train tracks.  However, Winans seems to know this so he limits his use of conversational dialogue as much as he can and his eccentric, unusual character dialogue is on the spot, particularly with Jacob, the path finder.

In terms of story Ink is an astounding, inspiring tale.  It's very poetic in the way things play out and while some of the more important parts of the story might be guessed earlier than intended it doesn't detract at all from the surge of emotion you'll have when the credits roll.  On a structural level the beginning of the movie does tend to drag a little bit but when it starts to pick up speed it keeps the pace going.

Ink's few flaws, mainly in the conversational dialogue and the pacing at the beginning of the movie are easily overlooked as Winans played this movie to his strengths.  Ink is amazing and everybody should see it, particularly people with a taste for the unusual and the beautiful.  One of the best movies I have ever seen and one of only three movies to ever earn this score from me:

10/10