10 Great Films That Already Flew Under The Radar In 2016
4. Swiss Army Man
Daniel Radcliffe must have
known that taking on the role of a corpse would give his detractors ammunition
for jokes about his ability as an actor, though you have to give the Harry
Potter star credit for doing everything in his power to distance himself from
the part that made him famous.
He stars alongside Paul Dano in Swiss Army Man, an utterly bizarre yet thoroughly enjoyable survival film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released in July this year to little fanfare despite the Hollywood credentials of its leading men.
Dano plays the stranded Hank, a man marooned on a desert island who is on the verge of suicide when he notices a corpse wash ashore (Radcliffe). He soon develops a bond with the cadaver and discovers that he can manipulate it like a tool to use in various island tasks - hence Swiss Army Man.
Things get deliberately ambiguous when the corpse is reanimated, and from there director duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan take us on a roller-coaster that reaches Michel Gondry-levels of whimsicality at its heights but feels more like a Lars Von Trier film at its bleak lows. The jarring tonal shifts aren't for everyone, though as a unique film experience nothing is yet to match it in 2016.