The feature debut of writer-director Karen Cinorre, orbits an intriguing premise – healing as purgatory, inspired by the Sirens – but its visuals far outpace its writing The ancient Greek myth of the Sirens, the half-woman, half-bird monsters whose mellifluous songs lured men to shipwrecked deaths on their shores, cast desire as inherently dangerous, femininity as bait. The story is overdue for a retelling, along the lines of Madeline Miller’s bestseller Circe, which reimagined the myth of the under-studied Odyssey sorceress through the perspective of a chameleonic, independent, traumatized goddess. Such fresh revision is one of many promising ideas undergirding Mayday, the atmospheric if often airless feature debut of the writer-director Karen Cinorre. There’s great potential in plumbing the tale of the Sirens for motivations masked by centuries of inattention, of attending to the scars that fester into monstrous rage. But its tantalizing visuals far outpace its sparse writing, which pays more attention to the specter of rape and violence than the female characters themselves and disappointingly conflates broad gestures to past trauma with depth. Related: John and the Hole review – empty psychodrama wastes early promise Continue reading...
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