Easy as it would be to categorise Vanishing Waves, however you may wish to do so, it would also be detrimental to your appreciation of the film. To label it 'erotic sci-fi' or 'Inception with more sex' is missing the point. The point is not the elaborate visual effects and the stylish art direction and the scientific psychobabble. The point is the throbbing, tempestuous relationship at this film's heart. It is, above all other things, a romance, and how smart to encase this romance in the trappings of sci-fi. A romance that takes place inside the mind, and only there, as is that not where all romances take place anyway? And a startlingly sensual romance too, as is the mind not also where all sensory apprehension takes place? What gloriously sensual imagery Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper devise for these dream-scapes. And what stirring ambience they create, with such marvellous sound design and a stunning musical score by Peter Von Poehl. And as it all combines, expressing the purity and intensity of sense and emotion within the brain, and the full breadth and depth of every aspect of every accoutrement of every feeling, whether physical or emotional, that is awoken in the core of such sincere, absolute love. I know, it's crass and pretentious, and the opening production credits give it away: wouldn't you know that North American distribution was handled by Artsploitation Films? If that alone sounds like it'll touch every sore spot in your psyche, don't bother with Vanishing Waves. Don't bother with a film that features a sequence of modern dance, in the nude, in a building on a beach, inside the mind of a comatose woman. But in a dark room, late at night, and on my own, I was as exhilarated and as overwhelmed by Buozyte and Samper's vision as Lukas is, emerging from his first experience of entering someone else's mind.
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